Project 10: Experimental relief prints (Part 1 - "Fur Babies")

My starting point for this project was the work I had been doing in my sketchbook related to 'fur babies' . These sketches were my reaction to a phenomenon I encountered frequently in my work as a veterinary surgeon. Pets, and especially dogs have been around us and part of our culture for so long that it seems natural that they would live in our houses with us. Our way of relating to them is blatantly anthropomorphic. That is we imbue their behaviours with underlying human emotions and motivations. This means that dogs exist somewhere in a hinterland between being an animal and being human. Many dogs live an extremely privileged life compared, for example to production animals such as chickens.

Sketchbook Pages: Fur Baby

Most of my clients treated their dogs as members of their family and many of them referred to themselves as 'mum' and 'dad' when talking to their animals. The animals were referred to as their 'fur babies'. Indeed, some clients would take greater care with their animals' health than with their own! In some relationships this fulfilled a need in those who were yearning to have children but were unable to - the pet then became a child substitute. In other cases the pet was not a child substitute but an alternative outlet for affection or existed alongside other children in the family at only a marginally lower status than them. 

There are advantages and disadvantages to this 'fur baby' status for the dog. It is lavished with affection and its needs in terms of nutrition and health care are catered for. However, behavioural problems can arise as a result of the dog being treated like a baby rather than being allowed to express its normal dog behaviour. Roaming freely and rolling in the smelliest substance to be found as well as territory marking with urine at the margins of the home range are not acceptable behaviour in a human household. Being confined for 90% of the day indoors can lead to frustration and aggression. I have been forced to euthanise many dogs over the years because they have bitten people - this is largely the result of misunderstanding of the dog's behavioural needs and signals by people. 

One of the worrying developments in recent years is the fashion for brachycephalic (flat faced) breeds such as pugs and French bulldogs. These dogs are now more like fashion accessories. Their 'fur baby' status is reinforced and they are considered 'cute' because they stimulate our primeval drive to care for human babies. They share some physical characteristics with human babies, namely: widely spaced and large eyes, rounded faces, chubby little bodies, small noses. However, there is a major downside for these animals . The very characteristics which people find so appealing can cause severe health problems. 
Small nostrils along with excess tissue at the back of the throat and narrow airways can cause severe breathing difficulties - especially if the dog is chubby. Those large eyes are prominent and often get ulcers. Short stubby legs and rounded bodies can come along with skeletal deformities. The big round face necessitates a large head relative to the size of the body. This means that a large number of these breeds cannot give birth by themselves. I have lost count of the number of French bulldog and pug caesareans I have carried out in the wee small hours of the morning. I find it abhorrent that these animals exist in such large numbers only because they are delivered by caesarean. The fact that these dog breeds are fashionable contributes further to welfare issue with the rise of puppy farms in which bitches are kept in inhumane conditions just to produce litter after litter of pups to satisfy public demand. The dog has, in this case jumped from one of our cultural 'pigeon-holes' to another i.e. from pet to production animal. 

Sketchbook work: Pugs overbred and gasping

One of the reasons that I no longer practise as a vet in an emergency clinic is the fact that I was in a situation which forced me to act contrary to my own personal ethics. I disagree with brachycephalic bitches undergoing multiple caesareans during their lifetimes to provide profit for dog breeders. However, when presented with a bitch that is struggling with her labour, I cannot refuse to carry out a caesarean because that would lead to the suffering and death of that individual. This situation was becoming more and more common in my everyday practise (although the reasons I stopped are more complex that this - it was a contributory factor).

However, I still have some ambivalence about these 'fur babies'. I am human, so I am not immune to their 'ugly-cute' appeal. I have met a lot of pugs and Frenchies over the years that had happy and engaging personalities despite their health problems (I too indulge in anthropomorphism). The people who have these dogs generally love them dearly and care for them to the best of their ability so I cannot outright condemn them. I wanted my work to reflect this ambiguity. To be unsettling or disturbing while also being attractive and interesting to the viewer. 

Of the sketches of fur babies I had made, the one which made both my husband and son give response of being perturbed/unsettled was this one:

I enlarged it in to my large sketchbook and then traced it onto a piece of lino. 

Because the subject to me was quite a dark one, I felt that the grainy darkness of etched lino would be ideal for this. I decided that I wanted to work larger than I had previously. The largest size plate I had was approximately A3 so I went with that as I am trying to use up my current supplies before buying anything new. 

Before etching, I cut away a few areas which I wanted to remain white on the print. These corresponded to the red areas on the sketch (for violence), which I planned to print using a second plate. 

The white areas were carved away first
before applying the resist and the etch.

I decided to try to resist the etch in the areas I wanted to print black using wax. I melted the wax in a bowl perched in a small amount of water in my slow cooker - this meant that I could keep the wax melted without risking burning it, and because the wax didn't touch the slow cooker I had only sacrificed a bowl and the slow cooker lived to cook another day! This arrangement worked well for melting the wax. However, drawing with the taunting tool was more difficult than I had thought. It took me quite some time to create the rather wobbly design of the face. 

Once I was happy with the resist, I painted the caustic paste liberally over the whole surface of the plate. It started to turn brown almost immediately. I was worried that I might have made the paste too strong so I decided to etch for only ten minutes. This was a mistake. when I washed the paste off, it was clear that the etch wasn't very deep. Unfortunately scrubbing the plate had also removed most of the wax so I couldn't etch it again straight away. I removed the the wax residue by ironing and printed the plate. It was possible to make out some lines but the image of the face was lost in a mass of confusing texture. I needed to try again. 

Because the wax had taken so long, I tried a different resist this time. I had heard that copydex glue could be used. I had some watercolour resist medium in my cupboard which looks and smells very much like copydex and dis to a shiny, rubbery finish so I decided to give that a try. This was easier to apply than the wax and it worked very well as a resist. This time I etched the plate for 30 minutes. I had to hand burnish the prints because the plate was too large to fit in my press so I only used thin cartridge paper and Japanese and Chinese rice papers for this project - as well as proofing onto newsprint. 

(NB throughout this post the prints do not appear to be rectangular - this is due to the photographs being taken with the camera at a slight angle to the picture plane - it is a photography problem not a problem with the prints)

Test print taken from the plate after etching for 30 mins
and removing the resist (cartridge paper)

I was happy with the result of the etching here but I realised that I'd made an error with the design. This was just a head floating in space plonked in the middle of the paper. I decided to try to introduce more design elements using a second plate. This would also test whether I had overcome the problems with aligning two plates that I had encountered in part 2. I therefore decided this would be my 'key block' and I reversed this image into another A3 plate by printing onto tracing paper and then transferring the ink from the tracing paper to the second block. 

The second block would be used for printing the colours of the face and to give the fur baby some shoulders. I also decided to use very bright colours following on from my tutor's comment that mu previous two plate print was reminiscent of Warhol. I thought that a pop art theme would be coherent with the fact that I was making a comment about consumerism and the latest 'must have' fashionable item. I used Hawthorn's sonic lipstick pink which is almost fluorescent, and I added a lot of transparent ink/extender so that the colour would be more translucent, allowing the white of the paper to shine through. 

For the next layer, I used a dabber to apply French blue ink mixed with a large amount of extender to one side of the plate, I tried the inks on various types of paper and at varying thicknesses. Some of the prints I took onto the thin Chinese paper were ghost prints and they came out quite well despite the fact tag I was printing them by hand. 

Next, I carved away most of the lino on the face, leaving only the small areas which I wanted to print in red around the eyes nose and ears. I did not carve away the background but covered it with parcel tape while inking up, which I removed before printing. 

I then printed the background in a dark purple to give more tonal variation.

The absent eyes on this version give the print a mask-like quality which I find quite sinister. 

Finally, I printed the etched plate over this reduction linocut. The results were variable partly because I'd experimented with different inking on the reduction block and partly because I'd used different types of paper. 

Where the colour on the reduction block was too strong, it overpowered the details on the etched block:

Unsuccessful print: The sonic pink
overpowers the overprinted etched key block

On some of the less absorbent papers such as the newsprint and cartridge paper, the ink took a very long time to dry. It was still slightly tacky when I tried to overprint. The tacky ink took u excessive amounts of ink from the etched areas and the final image was almost shaded into oblivion by too much black ink:

Unsuccessful print resulting from overprinting
on ink that was still tacky - too much black
ink has transferred

The most successful prints were those which were printed on Chinese or Japanese paper. The thinness of these papers facilitated the burnishing. They are also quite absorbent, they take the ink well and this means that the ink also dries quickly. These prints were, however, far from perfect because I had some issues with registration. I was using Ternes- Burton registration pins. Unfortunately, because of the current heat and humidity, the masking tape I had used to attach the tabs to the back of the paper kept falling off. In future I will allow extra paper at the top of the print which I can trim after printing, enabling me to use something stickier like parcel tape or super glue without fear of tearing the paper on removal. 

I also printed a few of a simpler version of this print using just the black and the red around the eyes. If I ignore the fact that this is a floating head, I actually prefer this version of the print. I like the fact that the grainy texture of the etched Lino is more evident and the subtle hint of violence with the use of red. Often less is more. Overcomplicating things doesn't necessarily make them better but it does increase the potential for error. 

What I learnt

• It is possible to combine lino etching and cutting on a two plate print
• Overcomplicating things make the process arduous and doesn't necessarily translate into better results
• It is possible to pull clear prints by hand burnishing on large plates and thinner papers which attract the ink (such as Chinese and Japanese rice or Kozo papers) give the best results.
• Printing over tacky ink will result in greater transfer of ink

Things to try for next time

• Be patient and wait for the ink to be completely dry before overprinting
• Try a different technique for affixing the registration tabs to the paper - it is almost impossible to achieve accurate registration if the tabs fall off
• Try printing the etched plate using an intaglio technique using a press.