An April Fool

Here's the 1st proof of the Keyline block of The Fool. Very appropriate for April Fool's Day don't you think? I will print 5-6 more of these on very thin calligraphy paper from Japan. Since the paper is designed for brush and ink it doesn't bleed and since it's thin when I glue the image face down to other blocks I will be able to still see the image from behind. I will then carve through the paper into the blocks for the various colors I will be using. I believe I will have one block for green, one for yellow, one for red and brown and one for blue. The extras will be in case I find I need more blocks as the much of the keyline block that I printed this proof from will soon be cleared so there is nothing but thin line art. This is because this block will be black. I left the background here for the transfer prints because the back ground will come from much of the green and blue blocks.I also printed The Magician proof. I will use the same process to create transfer prints. The blocks will most likely be: 1-blue, 1-yellow, 1-red, 1-brown, 1 royal blue & violet.

I have started carving the keyline for The Priestess. I'm really pleased with how she is turning out. I wish I could say the same for the Bee Tessellations...

I thought my rough proofing was the reason for the halo in my first proof but as I print with various papers I find that I still get a halo effect. I've printed aligned the plates to every edge and found that on one edge the yellow and black align perfect but the violet or blue doesn't align no matter what side I align all the edges to. This indicates to me that the violet plate is not square.

This little halo becomes a big problem when I try to print to handmade paper with 4 deckled (uneven) edges. Trimmed edges will eliminate the specialness of using hand made paper, I knew there would be some misalignment because of my paper choice but anticipated it being minor because I assumed that contracting professional engravers would give me plates of cleaner perfection than I could do...If I had done these plates myself they would have been square and I would be $100 richer. Beings I'm out of work $100 is that extra pigment brush, yellow ink and trans medium I need but can't buy right now. You know the old say if you want something done right...but

All that may be moot if I don't figure out what is making patchy areas when I use the paper for the cards with these plates. I've got some of the paper dampened; I'll try it and see if that will give me even pigmentation, if that doesn't work I'll try hand burnishing rather than using the press.

All in all of I can't get the copper relief plates to work I'll simply have to do wood plates. I wonder if cherry will hold up for 800 prints...I bet so, the Japanese used cherry for centuries to print advertising leaflets so I'm sure it will work. I'll check with the expert bareners at www.barenforum.org.