[accessibleimage] excellent ideas about embossing

Hi,
Forwarding this letter from the AEB list. Excellent ideas about embossing 
techniques, book ideas.
Regards,
Lisa

I just attended the second day of the excellent NYC conference.  It's
stimulated a lot of thoughts.  My background is as a printmaker, who
occasionally teaches arts workshops to sighted young people.  Some of the
processes might be of use also in work with the visually impaired.

Two ways of making relief printing plates (I'm not sure if they would work
as well for those who are totally blind):

1.  A technique called "alumigraph" whereby one makes a "sandwich" of
cardboard, acrylic gel medium (applied by brush), and heavy-duty aluminum
foil.  In the two hours that it takes the gel medium to dry, one can press
into the covering foil with various brushes (both ends) or even the tips of
wooden dowels, spoons, etc, to create recessed lines of varying widths.  It
is important not to puncture the foil.  When the gel has dried very
thoroughly (about two days), the plate can be relief rolled.  If dark ink is
used, the line elements will be white (or whatever color the paper is), or
print with opaque white on black paper to get dark lines (provided by the
black of the paper).

2. Gessoprinting involves applying gesso to a support such as masonite or
heavy cardboard by means of a squeeze bottle with a conical cap that has a
pinhole opening--hair-color applicators or ketchup bottles are examples. One
can first draw guidelines on the bare support material to serve as a guide
for the application of the gesso.  Factors in "drawing" include the speed
with which the bottle is moved while being squeezed and the amount of
pressure in the squeezing. When the lines of gesso have dried on the plate
(after several days), they are sufficiently higher than the support so that
they can be inked with a brayer.

I prefer oil-based inks, as they dry less quickly, and cleanup can be done
with vegetable oil as the harmless sovent.

Both kinds of plates can be used as uninked embossing matrices on an etching
press (with foam rubber between the paper and the usual etching blankets, to
prevent embossing the blankets), to create embossed images.  Possibly book
presses can be used also. When the plate is used for this, remember that the
recessed areas of the plate create the raises on the paper. The embossings
in turn can be colored with crayons, such as waterbased caran d'Ache--this
can be especially effective when the paper is dark.  Students can experiment
with coloring both sides of the paper==to play with positive and negative.
Although the following article is about embossing that is achieved through
the etching technique, some of the concepts, especially in the last few
paragraphs, may be of use for embossings created by other means:

http://www.marylandprintmakers.org/newsletter.asp?id=200

The printing plate themselves can serves as bas relief sculptures that can
be painted if the artist wishes.


I've also worked with a centuries-old book structure called the tunnel book,
described at the following link:

http://www.philobiblon.com/bonefolder/BonefolderVol1No2.pdf
(pp.20-4)

While my designs so far have not been meant for tactile exploration, the
tunnel book format is one that I think could be adapted for tactile
use--possibly more as a teaching tool than as an arts project. As the books
are collapsible, there may be some concepts that partially sighted people
can learn by manipulating a book, to vary the spaces between the attached
panels.   For people all along the spectrum, a tactile tunnel tunnel book
could create a semi-solid shape, whether simple or complex.  (Semi-solid,
because of the intervals of space between the parallel panels.) This could
involve either the interior spaces of subtly changing "open areas" from one
panel to the next, or, conversely, a book that has subtly changing contours
of the outer borders of its panels.  Also, one can attach kinetic elements
to the tunnel structure-- very briefly discussed in the paragraph on the toy
theater/tunnel book "The School for Scandal" at the end of the article.  The
tunnel format has the advantage of being collapsible, so can be easily
transported.

There is always the option of creating a basic tunnel- book framework,
without imagery, and then painting onto/gluing elements to the various
panels.





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