The new print project is complete. We have a final proof that will be used as the model for printing the editions. Jim Stroud, printer and producer for the project, shifted to a bone black printing ink and found that much more detail could be coaxed from the printing plates without sacrificing any of the dark value and presence of the black ink. The images are now far more reflective of my articulations in the copper printing surface. The housing, designed by Janine Wong is fantastic. It has the look of my journals but leaps to a different level with the deep, indigo colored housing and the collapsible, accordion-fold design.

Photograph of Janine Wong in her studio in Milton, Massachusetts as she refines the binding and the housing for the accordion print project now renamed April 2008.

The book consists of 12 accordion fold pages that include 13 images with text extracted from my journal, Book 130. I’ve retitled the volume April 2008 to indicate the pages of my journal encompassed in the printed transcription. The images are a fresh reinvestigation of the way I draw in my books, restudying the compositions in a wide range of intaglio processes. I was pushed to the edge of my knowledge and abilities while making this volume. It stretched me into new territory.

Janine’s design for the housing is very smart. It has a raw linen cover, like my journals do, but is protected by a linen covered indigo slip case.

The accordion fold allows a variety of configurations in which the pages can be arranged and read. Note the Title Page and Colophon are inside the raw linen cover.

The text of the Colophon reads:

“This accordion fold volume is extracted from Book 130 of the artist’s journals.

The copper plates were produced in whiteground and spitbite aquatint, mezzotint, etching and drypoint and executed at both Center Street Studio, Milton, Massachusetts and the artist’s studio in Silver Spring, Maryland between 13 May and 15 September 2008.

Printed by James Stroud assisted by James Ovid Mustin III on Hahnemühle paper at Center Street Studio.

Housing for the volume was designed and constructed by Janine Wong and Iris Grimm.

Thanks to Jenny Ritchie.

There are one hundred edition copies, five artist’s proofs, four Center Street Studio proofs, a printer’s proof, and one BAT.”

Inquires about April 2008 can be directed to Center Street Studio. A deep bow of thanks to Jim and Janine.

Trial Proofs for the Accordion Print Project, etching and aquatint on Hahnemühle paper, six sheets: each approximately 4 x 12″. These pages will eventually be linked horizontally. Upper left is Page 1, lower right is Page 12.

New Print Project Part 7

Proofs for the Accordion Print Project have been returned to me from Center Street Studio. They look excellent. Selections from a few of the 12 pages are included below and an overview of the sheets is shown above. I wrote notes on those proofs indicating to printer Jim Stroud where ink should be wiped selectively from the plates to bring out highlights. Those proofs with notes, seen as details below, were returned to Jim. After another proofing session, Jim has refined the printing a sent me a set of proofs (above) that have been torn out and folded in the configurations that will eventually be linked to form the print. Janine Wong is constructing a case that will hold the assembled volume.  That will be available soon for review. After looking at the proofs for a few days in the studio, I have decided that the plate work is complete.  Our aim is to have an assembled set of final edition prints available for review at the fine art book fair that Jim will be traveling to in late October. (To be continued).

Working Proof for Page 1

Working Proof for Page 2

Working Proof for Page 11

Photograph of studio table with plate 1 for the Accordion Print Project. Tools seen in the foreground include 1/2″ wide, and 1 1/2″ wide mezzotint rockers, scalpels, burnisher and dental tools. Image areas of the printing plate have been roughened and smoothed with these tools to hold varying amounts of ink when the plate is printed. Earlier impressions from the print project are visible (upper left) as is Book 130, the journal which contains the images that are being adapted. A mirror compensates for the reversal that occurs in the printing process.

New Print Project Part 6

When I am in the midst of a project it sometimes takes time to find my next step. I try to pull back a bit, be patient, and listen to the work.

Returning home in July after producing the printing plates for my Accordion Fold Print project at Center Street Studio, I hung the proofs on my studio walls and watched images out of the corner of my eye. I also kept the plates available on my tabletop for study. As time went on, I realized how much I liked the whiteground technique I had explored while working at the Center Street shop (see online journal entry for 23 July 2008). Without having much experience in the painting of whiteground, I had used it boldly, and while the effect I had achieved was a bit ragged and a little too loose at times, the overall feel was energetic and not far from the vigorous watercolor sketching that goes on in my journals. Finding a printmaking equivalent for my watercolor journal sketches seems like an intriguing goal.

However, as I kept looking at the trial prints over time, I realized there were several things that were not sitting well with me. First, I would have wanted more detail in the images. I had tried to articulate elements that had not materialized with the painted whiteground. Secondly, I wanted richer grays; the whiteground had tended toward strong contrasts, blacks and whites. The absence of detail and range of grays was due to my inexperience with the technique; the next time I work with whiteground at Jim’s shop I’ll try to stretching my abilities in this direction. But more than anything else, the blacks in the current proofs were not as rich and dark as I wanted. Mezzotint (see online journal entry for 24 August 2008), the intaglio process with which I have the most experience, can give a deeper, richer black than the black produced with the whiteground. I decided that the solution was to go back into the plates and augment them with mezzotint, working them by hand using a variety of tools, including mezzotint rockers, a scalpel, a burnisher, and small dental tools that works well for smoothing the low metal relief of the surface (see image above). The hand tools allow me to roughen and smooth the metal in selected areas, reworking and enriching surfaces that were previously cut by acid. With these tools I am able to bring out detail, create mid-tones (grays), and make the blacks denser.

The key to reworking is a ½ inch wide mezzotint rocker that I have become fairly adept at using. It allows me to do some very selective roughening of the copper plate. I can pit deep, parallel, serrated lines into the plate’s surface. These lines will hold a lot of velvety printing ink. I think of the areas I’m roughening not so much as fields of darkness, but more like areas of crosshatching. I use the mezzotint rocker to introduce hatching tones that define form; essentially drawing with the mezzotint tool.

I’ve spent more than a month rocking and burnishing (see photo above) and now it’s time to send the plates back to Jim at Center Street to be printed. I’ve been lookng at the physical surface of the plate and imagining what will translate, but you never know exactly what is present until it is inked and printed. In printmaking, one gives up control and allows other forces to introduce unpredictable changes. These forces can improve a work in a way that cannot be premeditated; or can turn a work into a disaster. Printmaking always carries risks and I’ve grown to love it for that. (To be continued)

Charles Ritchie, Daffodils with Astronomical Chart, 1996 working proof, mezzotint on Rives BFK paper, image: 11 1/2 x 12″.

Working in mezzotint is the exact opposite of watercolor in the sense that I am starting with a completely black ground and creating the lighter areas. Watercolor, my favorite drawing medium, is worked from the white page to the darks.

Mezzotint: Part 1

Daffodils with Astronomical Chart was created using a printmaking process called mezzotint. A mezzotint plate is pitted with microscopic depressions that can hold printing ink. Using an arced knife with a finely-serrated edge called a rocker; a copper plate’s surface is roughened uniformly so that if inked, it would print black (see image below). Keeping in mind that I am creating highlights on a dark ground, I smooth out the depressions to make grays and whites. The smoother the surface, the less ink it will catch, and the lighter it will print. A completely smooth area cannot hold ink and will print white.

I use special tools to accomplish the smoothing; a scalpel can shave away layers of metal and a burnisher can press down the roughened surface and polish it. The plates are worked in the my studio, but at various times during the process, I may stop work and ship the plate to my collaborator, printer/publisher James Stroud of Center Street Studio in Milton, Massachusetts in order to see my progress. Stroud rubs ink into the plate, removes excess ink with a cloth, and places the plate on the printing press bed under a dampened sheet of paper. When pressed together, the ink transfers to the paper to produce a test print called a proof. The proof is returned to me for approval. When the work is determined to be complete, a limited group of like impressions called an edition is printed and made available; or published. (To be continued)

Charles Ritchie, Daffodils with Astronomical Chart, 1996 edition print, mezzotint on Rives BFK paper, image: 11 1/2 x 12″

A copper plate being roughened with a mezzotint rocker.

Daffodils with Astronomical Chart is among the 65 works on view in the exhibition From the Inside Looking Out: The Journals, Drawings and Prints of Charles Ritchie, on view at The Gregg Museum of Art & Design, North Carolina State University, Raleigh from 21 August to 8 October 2008.

Note: This print was based on my earlier drawing from 1993-1995.

Charles Ritchie, two uncatalogued paintings, (left) Paper Whites, 1990-1992, 5 x 3 7/8″, (right) Roses, 1992, 5 3/8 x 3 7/8″, oil on gessoed mat board.

Painting Again

Previous experience can inform the new unexpectedly. While working at Center Street Studio print workshop, I was exploring a new medium, whiteground (see entry for 23 July 2008). At first I felt very comfortable using the material; it reminded me of working up paint with a brush and water as I do with watercolor. My collaborator, Jim Stroud had also eased me into the project by providing the whiteground in a small, porcelain dish like the ones I use with watercolor in my studio.

However, the as I painted on the copper plate with the whiteground its unique handling properties emerged. Every brush stroke seemed to be amplified. Streaks and marks left by the brush were extremely hard to soften and blend. Part of the reason was the lack of friction on the very slick copper on which I was painting. Jim helped improve the adhesion properties by adding more soap to the painting medium. Still, it was very hard to get an even tone until I finally discovered that by building an evenly mixed puddle of paint and flooding it in a shallow layer, it would dry as an even tone. I also discovered that by putting such a mixture over previously applied textured areas could soften and unify the tones.

As I was working I suddenly recalled a series of small paintings I did using white oil paint, linseed oil, and turpentine painted on a dark ground. (see Roses and Paper Whites, images above). I did practically the same thing, build are reservoir of color and flood it onto the ground to make the paint spread evenly. I must have drawn on this experience subconsciously during my attempts to solve this whiteground application problem. Perhaps the reason that they are similar is that linseed oil is an agent common to both processes.

In hind sight, the week making prints at Center Street Studio was spent solving the technical problem of paint application. It is interesting that my expectations of exploring a slowed down application of tone never transpired (see entry for 13 July 2008). Shifting speed was not the solution; altering the medium was. Perhaps the lesson is that having expectations is neither good nor bad but what is most important is being responsive to the process; being prepared for what happens and using experience to problem solve.

One of my mantras is from The Carpet Crawlers by Genesis, its chorus is a chiming reminder for me:

“You’ve got to get in to get out”.

Detail showing two images from Plate 2 of the Accordion Fold Print painted in whiteground on copper plate. Images are approximately 3 1/2″ tall. The copper surface shows under the painted whiteground. Black hardground surrounds the images and is touched into the images in several places. Both grounds will block the acid when the plate is immersed in an acid bath to cut recessions for holding ink when printing.

Photograph of whiteground in porcelain dish. This material is painted on the printing plate and to block corrosion in selected areas.

Photograph of copper printing plate on table with images painted in whiteground. The black surround is a hardground block. The plate is seen before being placed in the acid bath.

New Print Project: Part 5

Renewing work on my Accordion Fold Print project at Center Street Studio, I resolved to use whiteground etching (also called soapground) as a way of adding tone to my plates. It’s a process I’ve had very little experience using and I imagined it would be a challenge. With only five full working days ahead, I would have to learn quickly. I also imagined the frothy look of this medium would add a nice contrast to the line etchings I had made on the plates this past spring.

Whiteground is painted on an aquatinted printing plate to protect it in an acid bath. The mixture consists of soap (Ivory flakes were used in this case), linseed oil, and water. I found that when mixed just right, applying the diluted paste with a brush in layers does feel a bit like watercolor, my favorite drawing medium. Areas of the plate that are left unpainted are corroded by the acid, which roughens the surface enough to catch ink and print black. Areas heavily covered with whiteground will not be affected by the acid and will print white. Thinner layers of whiteground are eaten away by the acid relative to the depth of the resist. They will print as grays.

To begin, I painted loosely on test plates, to see how the whiteground handled. The first mixture of the medium beaded up slightly on the metal plate, making smooth application of the whiteground difficult. Jim Stroud, my printer and advisor, added a bit more soap to the mixture and this time the adherence was perfect. Feathering the paint resulted in brushstrokes that allowed the acid to slip through, cultivating rough, irregular areas in the plate. By flooding a thin pool of well-mixed paste and wash into areas more even tones were encouraged.

Time was tight; with only 3 working days left I had to finish 13 images spread among the 3 plates. I worked from before sunup until dinner time each day painting the whiteground in order to complete the plates. We etched the plates and printed proofs as we progressed. Now the plates will be shipped to me so that I can scrape and burnish details in my studio. I don’t want to overdo the polishing and finishing of the images. I want them to be direct, economical, and expressive; equivalents of images I paint in my journal. When I finish the plates, Jim will print the final editions and tear and fold them into pages. Sections will then be adhered in an accordion format and the 12 page compilation will be fitted into a specially made cover that Janine Wong is designing.

(To be continued)

Printing plate 1 on press bed with a proof impression.

Charles Ritchie, Guitar, 1992-1994, watercolor, graphite and pen and ink on Fabriano paper, private collection

Guitar Lessons

For many years I have played guitar; it is a satisfying part of my creative practice. One step away from the drawing table and I’m in a completely different zone; working in patterns on a field of time; focusing on completely different visual, tactile, and aural sensations than working with watercolor and brush. Even a short session away with the guitar returns me to the drawing table with fingers, eyes, and mind realigned and re-sensitized.

I’m a self taught rhythm guitar player, so I welcomed the opportunity to take some lessons from a professional; something I assumed would be instantly gratifying and quickly lift me into a different plane of playing. How wrong I was. I immediately discovered what a hole I had dug playing alone in the studio over the years. Sliding beats, fuzzed out notes; I had settled into a pattern of sloppy strumming and improvisation without accountability. It became clear by the end of the first session I was going to have to begin again.

So, in response, rather than the busy strums I’ve packed into each measure I’m stripping down to a single chord per beat; playing only the downbeat. I check each note for clarity; how it sounds on its own, how it sounds in relation to the whole. When collaborating with my teacher I now listen beyond my playing; what is my partner doing? Where is he in the music? Where might he want to go? How is my part serving his part?

The experience reminds me of making prints at Center Street Studio this past May. There, with my partner Jim, I found myself responding to what was happening with the printmaking process. When the photographic didn’t serve us properly, I drew the images by hand. During the unexpected detour I slowed my line down, learning to enjoy the feel of the needle pulling through etching ground as it exposed the copper of the plate. I cultivated clarity of line and tried to make each line serve the whole of the composition. Perhaps this slowing down and focusing on essentials will inform the next step of adding tone to the prints when I return to Center Street Studio next week. I’m also meditating what possibilities this approach might bring to my drawing.

As a side note, a number of artists of significance were excellent musicians. For example, Paul Klee almost chose a different career as a first-class violinist and John Singer Sargent was an accomplished pianist.

New Print Project: Part 4

Our first task when I arrived at Center Street Studio was to transfer my drawings with inscriptions photographically to film positives. Here Jim Stroud trims one of the films we created that will be used to transfer the images for our Accordion Print project to the printing plates.

Subsequently these films were placed against the photo sensitive printing plate and exposed to bright light; the plates were placed in a bath and developed. The purple coating that hardens on the surface of the plate protects areas of the plate when immersed in the acid bath (image below). Anywhere bare copper is exposed to acid, recessions will be cut which to hold the ink during printing.

In the photographic transfer process, we found that in order to make my original ink writing appear light enough, my graphite drawings (originally done in pencil) had almost disappeared. As a result I decided to incise each image by hand onto the plates. I used transfer paper to outline the compositions and then drew with a sharp stylus across the plates, cutting through the purple resist to expose copper (image above). The drawing process took a long time, but I liked the idea of hand-drawing the images. I had not tried line etching in many years. Rather than sketch quickly, I slowed down my line and enjoyed the feel of the stylus point across copper. Printmaking often takes you places you least expect to go and the dictates of the process can bring healthy new experience. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “every wall is a door.”

When we printed the plates (above), I felt very happy with the result. I had constructed a clear linear armature that I would then augment with tone using aquatint when I return to Center Street Studio to finish the project later this summer.

(above) Interior view of the Center Street Studio workshop with one of my Accordion Print proofs and plates on the press bed. John Wilson’s intaglio portrait of Martin Luther King, Jr. is on the left. Paintings by Jim Stroud are on the back wall.

(above) View of Center Street Studio workshop in Milton, Massachusetts. My deepest thanks go to Jim Stroud and Janine Wong my friends, hosts, and collaborators.

Photograph of project models for Accordion Fold Print; (top) Current journal book 130, open to one set of pages to be used as a motif for the print. (middle) Two horizontal rows of photocopied images from journal 130 that will serve as the image base for the accordion fold print. (bottom) The folded half-size maquette features the sequence of images sketched in watercolor on Arches paper.

New Print Project: Part 3

An accident opened a path.

I was cleaning the studio, making room for projects when a long strip of paper fell from beneath the cover of my drawing table. Two inches wide and forty inches long, it was a panoramic drawing on Arches paper I began in 1992. On the front were the bare outlines of a landscape I never completed. The back was unused white paper. Looking at the long format of the sheet, I instinctively knew that it would be my maquette for my accordion print. I had planned for the pages of the print to be the size and shape of my current journal pages: 4 inches high by 6 inches wide. By sheer coincidence, the paper I found was one half the height of my actual journal pages: 2 inches high. I began to fold the long strip of paper in the planned format. When I folded the whole 40-inch sheet, there were twelve panels and a half. The half page could be the title page for the project.

I still had no subject. Rolling through the pages of my journal, I sought images, a place to start. The past month had been an intense one both emotionally and artistically. It dawned on me that I could revisit a section of my current journal. Counting the pages in the month of April there were seventeen. If I removed a few of the images, I could make the whole month of April fit on twelve pages. A majority of my written entries could also be included.

After photocopying the pages from my journal that I wanted to include (see recent New Work entries for closeup views of these pages), I trimmed the photocopies to the 4 x 6″ page size and arranged them side by side in chronological, journal-entry order (see image above, 2 rows of middle panels). Next I took watercolor and did quick rough sketches on the long strip of paper to evoke the presence and flow of the folded object I was creating (see image above, bottom row).

After talking to printer and artist Jim Stroud, my collaborator, I learned that the plates we use would only accomodate 4 panels set side to side. I laid out 3 new sheets of paper, each comprising 4 of the panels (see image below). I sketched out the outlines in pencil and inscribed my journal entries in pen and ink. These 3 pages will be passed to Jim who will have a photographic negative made that can transfered the images/texts to the printing plates. The outlines will serve as the armatures on which I will work various printing processes. I head to Center Street Studio to work this week.

(above) Three sheets of 30″ wide paper each containing layouts for four of the pages to be included in the Accordion Fold Print. Written entries are inscribed in pen and ink. Drawings are in pencil. Each of the three sheets will be photographed and transfered to a printing plate as structures to be interpreted and expanded in a range of printmaking techniques.

Charles Ritchie, trial proof for Accordion Print, 2008, etching on wove paper, sheet size: 13 x 10 1/4″. A trial proof is a test printing that reveals the artist’s work on a printing plate.

Part 2: Trial proof created from drawings on Mylar transfered to a printing plate

I have just received a first proof that shows the results from the test I started a few weeks ago (see online journal entry for 24 March 2008) Printer Jim Stroud transferred the pen and ink writing/drawing I did on Mylar to a printing plate. The clear Mylar was placed face down on photo sensitized plates and a bright light exposed the plates. The areas not blocked by my writing/drawing were changed, hardened so that acid cannot eat away at them. The other areas remained open and when the plates were placed in a bath of acid the open areas allowed acid to eat into the copper printing plate. When the plates are removed from the acid and cleaned, these recessions are the areas that hold printing ink.

Two plates were prepared, one showed the drawing and the other the writing. Jim inked these plates and juxtaposed them on the press bed. He placed a sheet of dampened paper over the plates and ran them through the printing press (see image above). The writing transferred very well with very precise detail in the script. Jim used a graphite ink to print; a dark silvery-gray, echoing the pencil writing that often accompanies many of my drawings. While we will probably want to incorporate some of this graphite ink, most of my inscriptions will probably be in black, in the fashion of most of my notebook/journals, thus in the next proof we will probably want to use a black ink. Another more challenging obstacle is that there are very fine scratches all through the handwritten areas. These are slight abrasions that probably occurred while I was writing on the Mylar. If I am to continue working in this direction, I will have to be particularly careful not to allow scratching on the clear Mylar surface.

The transfer of the drawing went well, fairly detailed; however I probably went too far with the crosshatching. The black lines really filled in too much, effacing more detail than I would have liked. However, I am not really concerned with this as I will probably want to only create outlines of drawings for photographic transfer to the plate. I really prefer to work directly into the plate in etching and drypoint. The lines will be crisper and fresher and retain the nuances of hand-working than if they were photographically translated.

After seeing this trial proof I will set the Mylar transfer idea aside and try another approach. I will write and draw on a long sheet of Arches 90 pound hot press paper (which is my preferred drawing paper for my handmade journals). On this paper I will inscribe my texts and draw the outlines of my images in order to arrange the compositions of my pages. When complete I will send these drawings on paper to Jim who will have them photographically transfered to printing plates. I will then draw in etching, drypoint, and possibly mezzotint directly on the plates (to be continued).

Photograph of Printer James Stroud removing ink from copper printing plates, Center Street Studio, in the workshop’s previous location, Boston, April 1996.