Skip to main content

Mezzotint at the Art Institute of Chicago

Hamanishi Katsunori, Setsugo, 1977, mezzotint
The Japanese rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago have an exhibition of mezzotint prints by contemporary American-Japanese artist Hamanishi Katsunori. You make a mezzotint  by employing a blade with a rocking handle to rough up the surface of the copper plate, creating a lattice-work of tiny burrs that hold a lot of ink. The more you use the rocker, the denser the dark tone will be. You then create the image by scraping and burnishing the dark ground to introduce the grey-through-white tones. So, the more you burnish, the whiter the line. As one can see from the above print, mezzotint enables one to produce images of immense realism and delicacy. I think that Katsunori's most successful prints are the ones like this one, where he places unusual combinations of objects together in a way that enables him to explore tone and volume.

A really good feature of the exhibition was a cabinet of tools and a sample plate with graded mezzotint tones on it. This and the accompanying text panels were the best explanation of the process I've seen:


Popular posts from this blog

Restoring my Printing Press

I've just finished restoring and assembling my large etching press -- a six week process involving lots of rust removal, scrubbing with steel wool, and repainting. Here is a photo of the same kind of press from the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative: And here is a short YouTube video of me testing the press, making sure the motor still works after nearly seven years of lying in storage:

Brancusi in Plastic

Artist Mary Ellen Croteau is showing these columns made from recycled plastic cartons and lids in the window of the Columbia College bookstore on Michigan Avenue. They are a playful homage to Brancusi's "Endless Columns", with a serious environmental message for our times: Image copyright Inhabitat.com and Mary Ellen Croteau Mary Ellen also runs a wonderful experimental art gallery in a window space in west Chicago, called Art on Armitage . I will be exhibiting a mixed media piece there during August 2012.

How to etch a linoleum block

Linoleum as a material for printmaking has been used for nearly a hundred years now. Normally, you cut an image out using special gouges similar to woodcut tools, cutting away the lino around the image you want to print. This is called relief printmaking, because if you look at the block from the side, the material that remains stands up in relief from the backing material. You then roll ink with a brayer over the surface of the block, place paper over it, and either print by hand or run it through a press. You can do complex things this way (for example, reduction linocuts), but the beauty of the process is that it is quick, simple, and direct. Incised lino block, from me.redith.com Etched lino block, from Steve Edwards A few years ago, I saw some prints that were classified as coming from etched linoleum blocks, and I loved the textures I saw in them. In the last few months, I've been trying to use this technique in my own studio, learning about it as one does these d