news (Jill Saxton Smith ART)

New Inks

posted Feb 7, 2010 1:28 AM by Jill Smith

Recently I received a fresh batch of inks in the mail. I decide to try a different brand of ink for a change and hopefully to cure some problems I've been having. Previously, I was using Ghraphic Chemical relief inks (oil based) but I wanted to try some water soluable oil based inks for easier and faster cleanup. Graphic Chemical also makes a line of these but I don't like the consistency of their transparent base. It's way too stiff and tacky. I use a lot of transparent base in my inks and end up using a lot of other modifiers to correct the stiffness and tack. I've also had a lot of problems with the last few layers on my prints turning shiny.

I decided, after consulting about every woodcut printmaker out there, to go with Caligo Safe Wash Inks. So far I have finished one print using these. I really like the consitancy and the feel of the transparent base and the inks. I love the easy clean up. Soap and water do the job. No more solvents or baby oil. I think the best thing about them is that they have very little driers added to them so when I'm pulling a print and get interrupted (which happen almost every time) I can leave everything where it is and return back to it later that day to finish printing the edition. So far I'm pleased, although I'm still having trouble with the sheen, but I suspect that it's more than the inks causing this.

| Attachments: caligo.jpg in.jpg ink.jpg

Maghrib, the fourth call to prayer

posted Feb 4, 2010 1:12 AM by Jill Smith [ updated Feb 8, 2010 9:27 AM ]

Maghrib

Since the first day I arrived in Cairo, I've loved hearing the call to prayer. It's beautiful (usually, depending on the singing voice of the muezzin) and has become strangely comforting to me. It reminds me that I'm living in a foreign land but it's also something very predictable and stable where everything is so different and new. At first I would notice every call, (there's a mosque very close to us, but you can also hear it from mosques all over the city) and woke every day at 4 am with the first call. Now I can go throughout the day and not even notice it.

This is the first print that I have finished since we moved to Cairo. I wanted to capture the moment outside my window when the fourth call to prayer happens. Each call to prayer is set at a very specific time according to the position of the sun (not the clock). Maghrib, prayed just after sunset, is the fourth of five formal daily prayers. This is the first of a series I plan to do representing all five calls to prayer.

Below I've posted the different stages of the print. This is a reduction print (so I use one block of wood and carve away at it as I printed each layer). I usually print the lighter colors first, but in this print I did the opposite. The first layer is the dark blue, the 2nd and 3rd layers I printed a transparent white. The last layer is the bright blue of the distant buildings. Starting with darker colors and adding lighter layers creates an atmospheric feel, that if you listen just close enough, lets you hear the thousand mosques in Cairo just after sunset.

printing stages