Aaron Horkey...Are there any 100% by-hand posters?

General art-related discussion.
jodeci78
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Sat Aug 02, 2008 7:02 pm

GeoffPeveto wrote:
jodeci78 wrote:
GeoffPeveto wrote:
DarrenSorkey wrote:Yeah, that's pretty sweet.
I kind of doubt the Nesting plates were hand-cut though...Is that really true?
a decent amount of the layers were hand cut rubylith or hand painted directly on velums. the keyline was hand inked and then the film was enlarged and output at a blueline service bureau.
you need to start doing videos... free dvd with purchase.
I was thinking about getting a video camera to document this stuff. I just need to get off my ass and do it. I have a little 5 min video of all the stuff hanging in my house from my digital camera. It would be cool to have documents of all this crap we do.
get a canon G9 camera... its $500 in canada, but it also takes great quality video. it would be great to watch a clip from the initial concept development meetings.
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clem99
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Sat Aug 02, 2008 7:06 pm

can i just say thanks, very informative
art is the only justification for pain :)
drowningcreek
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Sat Aug 02, 2008 7:17 pm

GeoffPeveto wrote:I miss seeing you and Jeff at Flatstocks. You guys are badass. Hope to see you soon.
Yeah, it's been too long. Next time we drive anywhere near Austin, I'm gonna call you.

:wink:


I am making brownies right now and it occurred to me while I was mixing the batter..... I wonder if bakers ever have discussions about whether their creations are better hand-mixed or done with a mixer.

:lol: :lol: :lol:
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stsmytherie
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Sat Aug 02, 2008 9:42 pm

clem99 wrote:can i just say thanks, very informative
me too. very interesting.
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GreenMt
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Sat Aug 02, 2008 10:51 pm

Yes, thank you! This has been terrifically informative.

It is actually pretty unique to the gigposter era that artists have been so involved in the printing. Probably a combination of the DIY approach, combined with all the technical developments.

Although there is not much documentation of the interactions between artists and printers from earlier eras, certain artists eg Lautrec and Mucha, at least in certain stages of their careers were involved in drawing directly onto the stones.

Generally speaking, professional printing houses did the prints, based on drawings/gouaches. The size of eg a 9 foot tall Cheret required huge presses (the prints would've been usually printed in 2 sheets (though often side-by-side on the same sheet of paper) then pasted together on a wall.)

Cheret actually opened his own printing company (Imprimeries Chaix), and was also known to have drawn directly onto the stones (though he might leave the lettering to someone else)

I am very grateful for you for sharing your experience/perspectives.

Hope your wrists are better!
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greenhorn1
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Mon Aug 04, 2008 8:24 am

I think this thread has been pretty informative about how printing is done. Are there any sites that explain in this manner how separations are done (either on rubylith whatever that is, or in the computer)?
drowningcreek
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Mon Aug 04, 2008 11:09 am

First, it's important that you understand the pre-press process.

In screen printing there is a separate "color plate" for each color in a design. Each color plate has to be "burned" onto a screen stretched on a frame using a strong light source. What created the impression area is something called emulsion, which is basically glue that hardens under light. Where your color plate covers the emulsion with the "positive" (explained below), the glue does not harden and is washed out of the screen leaving an open mesh area that the ink is then pushed through to make the print impression.

If you have a 12 color design, this has to be done 12 times correctly, then each plate is loaded into the press set up and that color printed on all of the pages allotted for that edition. When finished, that screen is cleaned up, removed from the press and the next one loaded in and repeat until finished. The more colors you have, the more chances for misprints.

Look at the process threads Peveto and gang have posted over on the Decoder Ring site. They show the progression of each added color plate.

Rubylith or amberlith is (from Wikipedia) -
Rubylith is a brand of masking film, invented and trademarked by the Ulano Corporation. Today the brand has become genericized to the point that it has become synonymous with all coloured masking films.

Rubylith consists of two films sandwiched together. The bottom layer is a clear polyester backing sheet. The top layer is a translucent, red coloured, self adhesive, emulsion. It is designed to be both easy to cut with a knife and light safe for use with orthochromatic films.

Rubylith is used in many areas of graphic design, typically to produce masks for various printing techniques. For example it is often used to mask off areas of a design when using a photoresist to produce printing plates for offset lithography or gravure. It is also frequently used during screen-printing .

Ulano also produce a yellow coloured, masking film called Amberlith, that is not light safe but easier to use for masking when not employing a photoresist.
To use for silk screen printing http://www.ehow.com/how_10242_rubylith- ... -onto.html

Though graphics industry standard prior to the advent of the computer, Rubylith has its limitations. Standard equipment in any newspaper or print shop at this time would have also included a stat camera and developing tanks for making what we call "positives." Many times, if the original piece of art and the rubylith was not cut or sized correctly, the stat camera was used to make it the proper size.

Stat cameras were also used to apply half tones and other screened effects to photographs and artwork such as cross-hatching. Stat cameras are not small pieces of equipment. The developing tanks used to develop the positives or other artwork being resized, such as type being enlarged for headlines or to print on shirts, used nasty chemicals much the same as a photography studio.

Enter the computer.

While some people like to deride the computer as not being "personal enough" or not as "hand done" as the previous process, what they probably do not understand is that the computer gave artists, graphics businesses and print shops the ability to do away with the space-consuming stat camera and the chemicals and light sensitive films that often went bad if not used soon enough. Also, large light tables, rulers, expensive opaque pens and blades and knives and cabinets full of press type and rolls of border tape and register marks were no longer necessary. The capabilities for the computer to be able to use better technology to achieve halftones and to size type and art were enormous. The computer and output device could replace a HUGE amount of other equipment in the shop.

However, print shops and graphics professionals did not immediately switch over to computers because of the learning curve and also because someone had to pioneer standardizing the process for the industry. There was a time you had to pay someone to teach you their separation techniques and if I am not mistaken, there are a few still selling their methods. Some techniques became guarded "secrets."

Now, where I said Rubylith has its limitations, I was referring to the different types of color separations now being done..... there are sim process, process, index, spot, and I'm sure I'm missing a few. Rubylith's limitation is that you can't cut it to achieve a dot pattern or any sort of screen effect. A lot can be done with it and a good artist can push it's limitations.

To summarize, what you guys need to know about it is that ALL methods require a skilled artisan or craftsperson to be able to think color separations in their head. Whether separating and creating plates by hand using a paint brush, cutting rubylith or painting them in a computer, none of these tools do it for the artist. It's a manual process for the artist no matter which tool he chooses for separations and the finished result is directly linked to his or her skill level.

Some more food for thought and another post for the future is that besides the different color plates an artist has to pull apart in his brain, he/she also has to be thinking about the medium it's being printed with such as what sort of opacity are the inks, how are the inks going to print on top of the ones below, etc., etc..

You can probably find some more info over on gigposters.com where artists are talking about separations. Do a search for 'color separations' and see what it pulls up.

Edit to add: This is a very abbreviated overview of pre-press production. There is volumes more info that can be added to this.

My qualifications? I worked for 11 years in the pre-press production dept. of a newspaper, learned the old way of doing it and then was there for the transition to computer pagination. Then I owned my own screen print shop complete with stat camera and developing tanks. I was not sorry to see those become obsolete.
Last edited by drowningcreek on Mon Aug 04, 2008 12:28 pm, edited 2 times in total.
drowningcreek
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Mon Aug 04, 2008 11:16 am

GreenMt wrote:Yes, thank you! This has been terrifically informative.

It is actually pretty unique to the gigposter era that artists have been so involved in the printing. Probably a combination of the DIY approach, combined with all the technical developments.

Although there is not much documentation of the interactions between artists and printers from earlier eras, certain artists eg Lautrec and Mucha, at least in certain stages of their careers were involved in drawing directly onto the stones.

Generally speaking, professional printing houses did the prints, based on drawings/gouaches. The size of eg a 9 foot tall Cheret required huge presses (the prints would've been usually printed in 2 sheets (though often side-by-side on the same sheet of paper) then pasted together on a wall.)

Cheret actually opened his own printing company (Imprimeries Chaix), and was also known to have drawn directly onto the stones (though he might leave the lettering to someone else)

I am very grateful for you for sharing your experience/perspectives.

Hope your wrists are better!
Excellent historical information!

Yes, you are correct. Most artists worked with a print shop to reproduce their work because, and especially back then when the process was so involved, there wasn't enough time to be both artiste AND craftsman printer.

:wink:
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