Work diary: First proofs

Mon 20 August - Sisters

This past week has been a busy one, which started on Monday with the first proof of my lithograph, to test the marks I had made on the semi-opaque film that they use to transfer images photographically. They use the same film for all processes, although they have different grades for the litho, I use the mid range one.

So, my first proof, the image held quite a bit of the texture and detail but really was a little burnt out. The litho technician suggested he would alter the exposure but I felt we could try it anyway, and then I could decide.

When they printed it on the offset press, it looked a little ‘thin’ and of course, it was the opposite way around to the way I expected… it’s a long time since I worked with litho and I had felt I was not sure when I started drawing. Because it looked so different I decided to work on the image and after trying a few options on the computer quickly I considered adding another figure to balance the image, so that they were facing to the right, as I had originally intended. (I suppose it is that thing about reading from left to right, that they eye wants to work across the page or image in that way sometimes).

I considered the space around the figure to the left, and how it might work… with a second figure, and used the computer to rough in something else – as I only had a couple of prints to develop the image further by hand (as I had in the one on the left here).

I spent some time drawing, changed the background slightly to make it a bolder image, and in adding another figure, I removed some of the original one, to make the image work. It became a much more narrative piece, which was something I was working on, the journey to the horizon, although we cannot see beyond, the thought is in there. The movement became more of a dance and the relative closeness of the figures was important to me.

Although the black drawing really did not need anything else I wanted the lithographic stone colour to hold the background to the image, and kept it simple as there was so much drawing in the piece. On reflection, the original one then balanced the second as a pair, so we felt that it would work to edition both. How odd it is that when you look at one alone, it says one thing, but then the two together gave more to the first, in my view.

The first colour went onto the paper on Friday and the second, the black, will go on Monday, tomorrow. So there are my first two proofs. The background colour is the same, less yellow perhaps. The originals look great.