I KNEW No One Would Using Water-Based Ink Willingly

Like many other art seniors around the country, I spent my spring break working my butt off. Mostly on my upcoming senior exhibition, but I did spare a few hours for printmaking.

Being without a partner to hit the campus studio with (stupid after-hours rules), I decided to try out that gelatin printing I was so intrigued with. 

Now, my major question in regards to gelatin printing was why they were using sub-standard (read: water-based) inks. I'm a pretty hardcore oils girl. So many it was just my inner ink snob coming out. My complete lack of forethought. Because water a oil are not friends! So a water-based gelatin plate will completely reject oil ink. Since I already had my brayer loaded up, I just printed by hand from my plate of plexi.

Given my loathing of water-based ink, it really didn't surprise me to discover I had none. However, I do have a ton of acrylic paint! I knew from previous experience that it wouldn't roll out well; the viscosity just isn't right. As I expected, I had lines in my 'ink' from my brayer. My attempt to smooth them out with my fingers lead to some interesting texture though.
 

The actual printing was nice. I really only needed light-to-moderate hand pressure to get a gorgeous print. And once I printed the texture, there was little enough paint left on my brayer to roll out half-way decently. There are still lines in the paint from the brayer, but they are far less noticeable.

I especially like the ghost print of the woman. The way the paint halo-ed the paper cutout is intriguing. This technique is definitely worth another try with proper ink.

One clean up note. Remember how gelatin is water-based? Yeah, don't clean up with hot water. At least not in the sink. Or you'll lose a chunk of your damn plate. Which in retrospect, I might play with next time too.