When
I was still a student, my teacher, who was not only my art advisor
but a oil-painting artist as well, tried printmaking (lithograph).
His original plan was to use about three plates and finish by
using five to seven colors, taking into consideration the
overlaying of hues. However, perhaps due to the nature of an
artist who paints in oil, he felt the colors lacked depth compared
to the original image he had in mind and he produced plates afresh
a dozen or so more times. When he laid down his brush
(lithograph pencil), the colors certainly had increased in
their depth, but their brilliance had decreased by just as much
(At least that is how I felt).
This
experience became my inspiration. In my own color
copperplate engraving, I try to reduce the number of plates and to
make the most of the brilliance innate in colors, or the power of
colors maximize. Thus, for a plate on which colors are laid,
I pull the print in relief style even though it is an intaglio,
except for special cases. In the case of intaglio printing,
unless the plate is coated, colors either become dull, or, for
some types of color their tones change. This is due to the
friction created between the copperplate and the cheesecloth when
removing ink from the plate. There is nothing novel in
printing color plates in relief style but, for me, this is a
desperate way of minimizing the negative effects of copperplate
engraving.
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