What latest updates have I found with my second Chairman Mao layer?
I manage to get my printing technician to print out my second layer for me for my chairman mao image and it manage to turn out very nice. It looked very clear and good enough to expose onto the photo emulsion so he exposed it for me which took about 20 minutes. It came out very good but there was just one small problem, it had a small hole where it was not exposed enough so I just filled that in quite easily using the red filler and brush.
I also knew that the time was gonna come where I would eventually have to make one of the toughest screen inking colours for one of my prints and that colour is skin colour which was not gonna be easy for me.
Were there any problems?
Yes there was… and it lasted me for 4 hours of constant ink mixing to try make the right colour formula. I basically had to make almost every known colour to try make the colour of skin. What is most frustrating for me, is that the pigments are all wrong… when I mixed a n ice green with some red it did not turn to brown how I expected but it turned to purple instead… lol… I mean how crazy is that?
How did I solve this colour twisting phenomenon?
So it was almost like trying to find the skin colour blind folded, but when I finally managed to mix a good brown, I used Blue + Yellow = Green + Red = Purple + Yellow = Brown? Really? and… Brown + more yellow = Yellow Ochre + White = Skin colour – Peach or Carci colour. So that was the result for the day for my inking and pigment twisting equation, solved and dusted within 3 hours….
What Will I do next?
So now… I am free to go ahead with my second layer to print the main colour of my Chairman Mao’s face. With any luck my eyes will be as good as that ink when it touches the surface of that paper, Hopefully will be the same colour and will look great. Will keep you updated when I go to print the second layer.
Please feel free to watch or browse through my 6 minute commentary of mixing colours and seeing the end result…
What is the outcome for the latest batch of prints?
Well… I could say that it was pretty successful in the end using the new green colour that I mixed up and it seems to be the right colour this time. I do not think that I would say no to continuing doing the next layers on the first green colours. I think that it would be interesting to have the two different green colours side by side and the time I have finished the rest of the layers, it would be nice to see what looks best in the end.
What is the next part of this process I will do?
I will have to prepare my next layer ready for printing on Monday morning and with any luck it will print out successfully. I will make sure that it is the right measurement format so that it can be silkscreened nicely on top of the first printed layer. I am looking forward to seeing this image taking shape after printing the second layer and with any luck it will look neat.
Feel free to watch this short 2 minutes of detailed commentary of the final outcome of my refined green colours…
What is the outcome of my first silkscreen layer?
I successfully managed to print out my first photoshop layer of Chairman Mao onto an A2 size inkjet Acetate and looks very clear quality with no splodge marks. After that Glen has had to mix some new emulsion because the other emulsion was out of date so he had done that and managed to project my stencil image onto silkscreen. But… there was something that I was not expecting…
Were there any problems that I faced during this process?
There was in fact quite a big problem that I witnessed and yet again this was not knew to me as I have experienced this problem before… For the second time or maybe so many times running, the technician has made an error within the emulsion and did not put on enough thickness of emulsion which has left it a bit short exposured. Meaning that there was not enough emulsion on one part of my image which is located near the bottom of my image.
There was another problem with the colouring of the green that I mixed for Chairman Mao’s suit and hat. The new inks that I used were blue and yellow and these were used so that I can make a nice dark green. After this, the pigment seemed dark enough but when I used it to print the first 5 prints, it turned out to be a lime green.
How did I manage to get through these problems?
So in the end my technician managed to put some red colour filler onto the gap that was not exposed enough and this managed to work nicely making sure that any ink will not travel through the torn looking gap.
As for the green inks, I managed to mix up some more using exactly the same formula but only adding a little black, making it darker and should be ready to use for the next batch of 10 prints that I hope to do later on.
What is the next step?
The next part of my process will be to do another 10 prints which will mean buying 10 more sheets of fabriano paper and getting my new improved dark green ink which should work better this time. will keep you updated shortly on this outcome.
Feel free to watch this short 5 minutes of detailed commentary showing my first printing process.
