Plastic Plates

I spent the day in the studio working on "cracks & crevices" and ended up with a couple of strong proofs. Adjusting the curves in Photoshop before I make my transparencies makes a world of difference!

I really like the individual compositions of the two proofs below, but I especially like them together so I'm considering presenting them as a diptych. I'm in the process of figuring out my color options; the left is printed in Akua's Carbon Black and the one on the right in Graphite. This series should offer a variety of options that will be fun to explore.

I found out something interesting today. I started out this morning by adhering ImagOn film to a piece of Plexiglass scrap that I had on hand. Even though I was using my new and improved transparency and the same exposure time as my last session, I ended up with a really poor, washed out print.

Plexiglass plate and proof.

This didn't make sense. So just for the heck of it, I adhered film to a different surface; some thinner flexible plastic dry point plates that I've had forever. I ended up with great proofs. There must be something about the thicker plexiglass but for the life of me I can't imagine why the ImagOn won't work when they're used. A puzzel to be solved another time I guess. 

I ended up ordering some plastic plates from Dick Blick. Akua Plates The nice thing about ImagOn is that plates can be reclaimed and used again by placing them in a strong soda ash solution over night to strip the film.

Standard Plexiglass & old plastic plates from Rembrandt Graphic Arts.

Before I called it a day, I exposed both images to a new plate. This time I adhered two layers of ImagOn to one of the larger flexible plastic plates. You can see that after processing, the images look strong. I'll let the plate set over night and see how they print tomorrow.

Flexible plastic plate with double ImagOn layer.