Transparency in inks

[[deleted user]]

I am working on a block print and am trying to get an effect of layering two colors to get three. I am having trouble with the transparency of my ink. I have seen this done plenty of times, so I know it is possible, I am just not sure why it is not working...is my ink too opaque? any ideas or techniques I could try?

thanks,
emily

[Lena]

hi emily,

i've never done this myself because i work with opaque inks-- but i love the look of layered inks too. maybe you could try using a dye instead, like a jacquard dye mixed with a little transparent base. let me know how it goes, i'd love to hear!

best, lena

[Laura]

hi lena and emily,
the only experience i had with water-based inks was with speedball block printing ink, and they make a transparent extender in that line that i thought worked really well. it's the type of thing where you want to start with a bit of the extender and then slowly add tiny bits of color, test printing as you go, until you get the transparency you want. depending on the transparency you are going for, you might end up using a lot of transparent extender and not much colored ink, but it is possible, and the results are really exciting! (i hope it's okay that i piped in.)
also, lena, do you have anything like a 'printing by hand' flickr pool? i'd love to see what other readers have done.
laura.

[Lena]

thanks for piping in, laura! that's great advice. i would recommend trying that as well.

yes, i do have a flickr group:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/printing...

(many of the projects that people add are not related to my book, though)

[Laura]

oh, goody! i will go explore it. . . thank you!

[[deleted user]]

Thank you for the ideas! After playing around with it some more I was finally able to get the right effect! I was looking to layer blue over yellow in order to get a green color, but the blue was coming out too opaque. I could get the yellow as transparent as I needed, but the vintage blocks I was using for the blue layer required heavy inking. So, I switched the order - blue then yellow - and got a great effect! I posted the calendar on my blog if you want to get a quick look at how it turned out!

http://blog-a-little.blogspot.com/

I will have to check out the transparent extender though. I have not used that before, and would love to see what results can come from it! Thank you both for the ideas. Lena, I love your work and "Printing by Hand" is such a beautiful book! Happy Holidays to both of you!

[Lena]

ohh, i love your calendar! very very nice!
i'm glad to hear you were able to get the layered effect. and so glad you like the book.