Getting ready to cut a rubylith overlay.
This poster will be offset printed two colors, black & orange.
I will be hand cutting areas that will be printed orange.
Cutting the rubylith overlay with X-Acto blade.
Finished cutting the rubylight overlay.
Next up - Final touch-up on the 2 film negatives. Negs will be used to burn the images onto 2 metal plates.
This poster will be 2 colors so there are 2 negs -
1 for the base art (black ink) and one for the overlay (orange ink).
Close-Up of the film negative to be used for the black ink.
The negative was pinned onto a metal printing plate onto a vacuum glass.
It is then burned (like a photo process). After being exposed, the plate is
then fixed with chemicals and ready to put on the offset printing press.
When the plate is not in use, it is covered with a thin coating of gum arabic
to preserve it for future printing runs.
Parchment paper stack all ready for offset printing up my new posters!
Here is the beast that will be fed all that paper
so it can beautifully offset print new posters.
When the press is set up & ready to go,
the gum arabic is cleaned off the metal plate which is then
screwed/clamped on the plate cylinder of the offset printing press.
Another view of the metal plate on the press.
(Orange) ink is added into the long ink fountain in front.
Those little knobs on the front are turned to increase or decrease ink flow
in order to fine tune the perfect amount of ink coverage.
Too much ink = muddy offset. Too little ink = washed out coverage.
After the metal plate it made, the offset printing press is
calibrated for the paper size it will be printing and the paper
is then loaded into the back end of the press.
And the first color is printed.
And the first color is printed.
Here the paper is being loaded again for the second run through, black ink.
When the poster is all printed, it is set to dry for a few days and
then trimmed on a paper cutting machine.
Another view of the paper trimming process
showing a different poster being trimmed.
And Voila! Radium Liquid Sunshine Poster -
Hand-Illustrated Pen-and-Ink, Offset Printed black and orange ink on Parchment stock -
Available for sale on my website in the POSTER section. Clickhere
On the poster you will see the number WN-IO407-1.
This is a memorial poster dedicated to my dear friend James Acord.
If you don't know who he is, please do a Google search or you can read his wiki pagehere
