ImageOn

My first steps in the wonderful world of ImageOn did - of course - start with doing stuff wrong. But as so often the beauty is in the mistakes, and i am thoroughly pleased with the result. 

ImageOn is a technique where you lay a photosensitive layer on a copper plate (or dry-point plastic as shown in the next image) and use a mask, like a photograph or drawing on a see-through material, to expose. The photosensitive layer stays soft where uv-light is blocked, and you wash out the exposed image with an intaglio plate as result which is printed in the same way as an ordinary etching.

The doing-stuff-wrong part happened when i laid my exposed plate in the wrong developer bath, which was meant for offset plates and much more aggressive than the one i should have been using. This resulted in blistering on the image and some offensive language on my part. 

I decided to print it anyway and i am happy i did so because i really like the grittiness of the image. 

This is another way of using ImageOn, with a photograph printed on see-through paper as mask and dry-needle plastic as a base. The words on top of the building were added by hand. 

The cool thing with ImageOn on plastic is that you can cut out shapes with relative ease, even though the photosensitive film doesn't adhere quite as well on plastic because plastic clearly contains a minute amount of fat. I used sandpaper to roughen the surface which helped, but when cutting into the plastic + film small bits of film chipped off. I don't really mind and think it adds character to the whole image but it's good to know. 

Speaking of knowledge:  I ordered The Thames and Hudson Manual of Etching and Engraving, which is absolutely packed with everything you'd ever want to know about said techniques, for a whopping total of 70 Swedish crones (roughly 7 euros) including shipping from the UK, after borrowing it from the library and falling in all kinds of love. My library of printmaking bibles is growing slowly but steadily! 

This weekend I'll be in school for most of the time, trying to finish my to-do list for the Amsterdam project which now has 13 to-dos staring me in the face and a deadline for next Thursday. Brr.

Have a happy weekend!