My first attempt at a 4-color photo-intaglio, “Snow Shadows,” had technical problems with the black plate last year. So I improvised and made it a 2-color plate with red and black(using the cyan plate for the black ink). This year, I re-visited the image and exposed another black plate to reprinted the image again, now as a 4-color image. The result is a richer print, with warm yellows in the reflected light, and cooler shadows in the foreground.
24×18 Photo-Intaglio print of a manipulated photo that I took in winter of 2015 in Central Park.
I was trying to capture the twisted textures of the trees, contrasting the distant urban skyline, but the photo process filled in the trees as a flat black, and the emphasis is now on the dramatic sky contrasting the exciting weave of shadows on the walkway. As usual, printmaking doesn’t always do what I expect but I do like this image in the end.
I redid the plate, with an ochre/sienna ink, and layered it with a second plate, created from a different photo, after using the curves tool in photoshop to isolate the blacks. I also gave the 2nd plate a longer exposure to be sure the details in the black would print. This new image captures the sky and light areas of the photo with the first yellow plate, and the rich textures are captured on the black plate.
I plan to experiment further with this image in the spring of 2016
11″ x 14″ photo intaglio print based upon a photo I took during early autumn snowfall on a hike below the Kaaterskill falls in New York State. I was attracted to the textures of the rocks, contrasting the flow of the water between and over their surfaces.
This 20″ x 16″ print is a mixed-media layering of three printings from two plates. The first matrix/plate was a collagraph on masonite(carving of buildings and covered with lace, acrylic gel, and gauze), first wiped with black ink and then rolled with off-white ink as a block print on top. The third layer was from another plate, a photo intaglio plate with the details of the building windows, that is wiped with black ink and printed on top.
18″x14″ Two-plate photo intaglio from my photo of our back walkway after a heavy snowfall. I was attracted to the graphic textures on the bushes and the rhythm of the shadows from the railings on the snow. I didn’t print all the colors of the actual photo, leaving out the black plate, which had grounded the background trees, loosing that illusive background.
denise moser 