MOKU DOCU a non-scientific description of the Mokulito printing process Š 2020 by Bernhard Cociancig
Introductory Remarks Enough has already been written and published about the history and principles of Alois Senefelder’s invention of lithography; hence, no regurgitation here. This collection of bits and pieces of experience and the ensuing write-up concerns Mokulito. This printing process was originally developed in the 1970-ies by Professor Ozaku Seishi (*1934) of the Tama Bijutsu University in Tokyo, Japan. Unfortunately, it seems the professor has not provided any written documentation on the Mokulito process, although he has applied the technique in some of his artworks. Mokulito is one of his many inventions. Another one is the “Toothpick Baren”; an extremely simple device to transfer ink from a plate to paper. Mokulito was (re)introduced to the global printing community by Józef Budka, a respected lithographer and professor in Katowice, who also taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. He realized that the work on lithography stones was not only cumbersome but he also foresaw that good stone material (usually the Solnhofen Limestone) was becoming obsolete - and so he began looking for an alternative which he eventually found in Mokulito. Józef Budka’s daughter Ewa began experimenting with Mokulito as a student. She later graduated from the university in Milwaukee with her Master’s thesis “The Skin I Have Been Living In” in Mokulito. Since then, she has held numerous workshops on the technique around the world. In the years the Budka family engaged in Mokulito, they have gone through trials and tribulations to get this technique to work. Their experiences are vividly described in several blogs and interviews Ewa has given. Around the middle to the end of the last decade, Mokulito became increasingly popular with printmakers as an innovative, nonhazardous, litho-like printing technique. Several followers around the world have meanwhile participated in workshops and/or have gone
through their own experiences: good or bad! To this day, there is not just one way to master the Mokulito technique. Many variables are involved in the process and I felt the need to share my experiences. This write-up is not meant to be a sure-fire “cookbook” and shall also not replace workshops. It is there where one can get acquainted with the process, and receives tips and tricks from the experts. However, if you are interested and do not have the opportunity to participate in live demonstrations, this compilation may be of help. I would heartily like to invite Mokulito experts to share their experiences by way of adding comments to this guideline. Certainly, this compilation does not constitute a scientific research, although this may come at a later stage to further study cause and effects in more depth. It was simply done to collate and document results of experiments over the past years, pitfalls not excluded. For me as a person with a technical background, a systematic approach to this (and any other) printing technique was separating the wheat from the chaff on information available in the public domain. However, Mokulito is–and most likely will remain due to the many variables influencing the outcome– an experimental process with lots of surprises both positive or negative! And that is, along with other advantages, what in my view makes this printing technique so exciting… HAPPY PRINTING
Bernhard Cociancig Vienna and Kirchberg am Wechsel (Austria) January 2020
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements Some four years ago, during my first and wobbly steps into the Mokulito world, the only information available on the process could be found on the internet. After collecting a raft of (often different and sometimes even contradictory) information, the first attempts were less than encouraging. During inking up, the plywood immediately smudged up solid and standing in almost kneedeep in water, trying to clean the plate, the printshop was just a mess. This was about the time, when I started to contact printmakers who had already mastered the process, asking for their advice and support. This is the place to say a huge "thank you" to Ariadna Abadal Danielle Creenaune Adrienne Lichliter Oksana Stratiychuk and daughter Ivanna Caroline Whitehead In particular, I am most grateful for Oksana’s invitation to visit her in her studio in Kiev (Ukraine). Two trips provided me with valuable insight into the process. If you visit Oksana’s website you will find that she holds printmaking courses on Mokultio and on other printmaking techniques. Another great experience was my month-long Artist in Residence in Arenys de Munt (Spain), where Ariadna and her parents run a remarkable print graphics workshop. Ariadna teaches workshops in Spain and elsewhere and her largescale Mokulito prints are great pieces of art. While I do not want to provide any contacts, I am certain that you will be able to find them through internet searches.
The Mokulito Ingredients The following are the elements needed for preparing Mokulito plates and pulling prints from them: Plywood In my humble view, the type and preparation of plywood is probably the most important element in the process – and likely the most unpredictable one. Not only can you choose from a wide range of different wood types, you can never be certain, what production processes, handling, and storage conditions the wood has experienced – all of which have some kind of influence on the Mokulito process. As a general rule, only hardwood plywood is recommended for the Mokulito process. However, there is alder, ash, oak, beech, birch, elm, linden, luan, maple, poplar, walnut… so what wood to use? Besides, depending on your location, you may or may not be able to procure certain plywood types; for example, in Europe you cannot get luan. Some precious or exotic wood plywood types, like cherry and mahogany, are generally prohibitively expensive and have therefore not been included in my test sequences. My first Mokulito tests were conducted with poplar plywood–with catastrophic results. The reason for using this wood was simply affordability: poplar is cheap and the plywood is available in a wide array of thicknesses (from 2 to 12 mm or 2/32 "to 1/2"). In the following test series and subsequent printworks, I have used and compared alder, ash, beech, birch, and maple plywoods. These can be bought in well stocked wood supply stores in Austria in thicknesses from 4 to 15 mm (5/32" to 19/32" ).These shops usually provide cut-outs from whole sheet sizes 150 x 250 cm (59 x 98 1/2"). While I confess that I have not yet tried softwood plywood (pine, spruce, etc), there seems to be a
general consent amongst Mokulito artists that the high resin content in the softwood does not lend itself well for the process. The resin will most likely take ink in the printing process thus scumming up everywhere. Here, as elsewhere, some experiments are still waiting to be performed to either confirm – or review… Plywood Preparation Sand the plywood plate with fine (220) sandpaper either by hand or with electric sanders. Try not to touch the plate with your hands to avoid fingerprints on the plate (the grease from the skin may later show up in the inking-up and printing process). As mentioned earlier, the production, handling, and storage process of the plywood has a marked influence on its later behavior in the printing process: any water-proofing or other impregnation (anti-fouling etc.) makes it unpredictable how the plywood will behave in the subsequent stages of drawing and printing. Run some tests on small samples of your preferred type plywood. In case you are satisfied with the outcome, buy a good stock of this material from the same vendor. For the usage of milk in the plywood preparation prior to the drawing process, please see my comment under “Assessments”. Transfer of Design Drawings In case you design your drawings and layout on paper (as opposed to directly on the plywood), coat the backside of the drafting paper with sanguine and use this as a carbon paper to transfer your drawing to the plywood. Sanguine (contrary to carbon paper or similar products) is neutral in the subsequent phases and does not take any ink in the inking-up process. Sanguine is available either in a drawing material (“Cretacolor” leads, sticks) or also in powder form. No need to remove the sanguine from the wood in the next processes.
The four plywood plates (from left to right): • beech • birch • ash • maple first drawings made with oil based Pebeo-marker
Print #2, horizontally flipped for better comparison to above plates note the woodgrain coming trough on the ash plate!
Drawing Materials In theory, any oily/fatty drawing material, applied onto plywood, should accept and hold ink in the inking-up process. As known from the stone lithography, there are several drawing materials such as: • Liquid Litho Tusches (to avoid confusion with Litho Inks, later used for inking-up, I will refer to the drawing material as “Tusches”, although some can be labeled “Lithographic Inks”!) – Manufacturer: Charbonnel, Rohrer • Solid Litho Tusches as sticks or as waxy material in cans which need to be ground up in water or turpentine to produce a liquid Manufacturer: Charbonnel, Rohrer, Korn • Litho Crayons/Pencils/Chalk Sticks Manufacturer: Charbonnel, Rohrer, Korn • Oil Based Markers - Manufacturer: Sharpie, Pebeo (Acrylic based marker don’t work!) • Oil Pastels • Any other fatty/oily/waxy drawing material In light of the fact that at this stage we already have some 8+ different possibilities of plywood types and 5+ different types of drawing materials, this would ensue in wonderful 40+ different possible combinations to test and assess further steps in the process – not very practical… My choice of plywood for the drawing materials test was elm: unfortunately, elm disease will make this wood quite scarce. in future. On the plate, the squares were filled with (see right page): • Charbonnel Liquid Litho Tusche (undiluted, 1x and 2x applied with brush) • Charbonnel Liquid Litho Tusche (25% and 50% diluted) • Rohrer Liquid Litho Tusche (undiluted, 1x and 2x applied with brush) • Rohrer Liquid Li tho Tusche (25% and 50% diluted) • Korn Litho Pencil (lower half heated*)
• Rohrer Litho Sticks (lower half heated*) • Charbonnel Liquid Litho Tusche (applied with nibs) • Charbonnel Solid Litho Tusche (waxy from can, ground up) • Pebeo Oil Based Marker • Charbonnel Solid Litho Tusche (stick, ground up) Comments on drawing materials, dilution of Tusches (to achieve grey shadings and gradations) and (*explanation for heating) see in section “Assessment” Plate Preparation After drawing on the plate, all liquid drawing materials should be given sufficient time to properly dry (no wet puddles left). Once properly dried, dust the plate with talcum powder (best done from a sugar shaker). Distribute the talcum equally across the plate with a soft brush and rub it in with a soft cloth (soft paper towel is also fine). Talcum, in particular prepares those areas which have been covered with drawing material for the subsequent gumming: those areas are oleophilic (“oil-loving”) and without the talcum, the water-based gum tends to run off the oil-wet areas. Etching - Apply Gum Arabic to the plate and distribute with a soft brush or soft (flat) sponge, gently not to destroy the drawings. Note: this sponge should be used for nothing else. A thin layer of gum suffices. I have initially made the mistake thinking that “a lot helps a lot” – it does not (thanks, Ariadna!). Let the gum dry to touch before applying a second layer of Gum Arabic as described before. Gum Arabic is a very mild acid and "etches" the plate similar to the stone litho etching process, where it is also used for that purpose. In the test, I halved the plate areas to apply a Gum Arabic-Tannic mixture to the right part of the plate. Tannic Acid is a very mild acid, a natural material extracted from nutgalls and used in leather tanning but is also found (in homeopathic doses) in red wine. Having received the recommendation to use a TAPEM (a TAnnic-Phosphoric-Etching-Medium) and Gum Arabic Mixture (first gumming: 30% TAPEM,
70% Gum Arabic, second gumming: 50%/50% TAPEM/Gum Arabic), I was unable to procure TAPEM here in Europe. Adrienne Lichtliter (thanks!) explained to me the recipe of TAPEM (including a variation to use Citric Acid instead) but the use of Phosphoric Acid (in whatever concentration) made me abstain from it. I used a Tannic Acid solution (20% weight in 80% water) for the tests. In this and any later test, I was unable to recognize any difference or improvement in using Gum Arabic/Tannic mixtures over pure Gum Arabic. Doing some research on the use of Tannic, I found that it is sometimes used for sizing paper, cardboard and other pulp products. I failed to see any effect of Tannic on the plywood, other than its amber color, which is difficult to wash out from the plate and comes lightly through during the initial printing process. Following the gumming process, the plywood plates should dry properly and age at least 2-3 days, better up to a week (longer does not harm). Charbonnel Lithographic Ink (Encre Lithographique): Don't be mistaken by the label on the lid - check the side of the tin. Tin contains the waxy material which can be diluted in water (or turpentine) to create washes and gradations.
Drawing Materials: Charbonnel Lithographic Ink (this is actually a waxy component to be diluted to produce a Tusche as explained on this page); Charbonnel Lithographic Pencils (sticks); Charbonnel Liquid Lithographic Ink (aspalt-based Tusche); Rohrer Litho Chalk (sticks); Rohrer Lithographic Tusche; Korn Litho Pencils; Charbonnel Litho Sticks (to be ground up with water)
Pebeo Markers: When buying markers, make sure they are oil-based! There are only a few brands available in Europe, oil-based Sharpies are usually not available in our supply stores. Any non-oil-based markers (acrylic, permanent or nonpermanent etc.) will not work on Mokulito plates!
Drawing Materials test: photos previous page: top-left: top right: bottom left: bottom right:
description of materials used plywood plate with drawings applying Talcum applying Gum Arabic
photos this page: top-left: top right: bottom right:
after first gumming after second gumming (Gum/Tannic mix on right half) print Nr 3 photo is horizontally flipped for ease of comparison with plate
Woodcuts
Inking Up
One distinct advantage of the Mokulito process is the option to combine flat print and woodcut processes on the same plate. As you will have to touch and handle the plywood plate quite extensively when applying woodcuts, you may prefer to do that after you have prepared (gummed up and dried) the plate to avoid fingerprints. I found only one (minor) problem with the woodcuts: during the inking up and plate cleaning process with the sponge, some excess water tends to accumulate in the cut grooves, including some loosened ink. This potentially results in cuts showing not as white as you are used to from relief woodcut prints. I suggest removing the accumulated liquid by dabbing with Q-tips or similar.
Rollers: Rubber rollers (like the ones used for inking up relief plates) seem not to work at all. Although I have come across some videos where stone-litho (leather?) rollers were used for inking, the majority of Mokulito artists seem to recommend using foam rollers; the ones you can get in hardware stores. Contrary to the expensive leather rollers, foam rollers are not only cheap, but also having the advantage you don’t have to clean them after inking/printing. You can simply dispose of them.
Another way to minimize water/oil mixture pick-up during printing is to use smooth (cold pressed) paper and a tympan (plastic sheet), to avoid the paper being pushed into the carvings. Heavy, thick and dampened paper will not do the trick. Printing During print runs, the plywood must not get dry, especially in hot and/or dry climates. To avoid longer interruptions between inking up and printing, preparation is important. So before starting the degumming, inking up and printing process, prepare the needful: ink(s), brayer(s) or roller(s), sponge (flat and soft) and water bowl, paper, baren/spoon (if hand-printed) and press setting (if etching press is used). An atomizer for water-spraying the plate in between print runs minimizes the amount of water to keep the plate moist. De-Gumming When you are ready to print, rinse the plate well and carefully wash off the Gum Arabic with your hands, until you don’t feel any slimy touch. To ensure the entire plywood remains damp during the following processes, also properly rinse and wet the backside of the plate.
Inks: As in stone litho, the Mokulito process requires the use of oil based inks. I tried different brands of a variety of relief-, intaglio- and litho inks to come to the conclusion that I personally prefer litho inks. Other (relief) inks work just as well, making your choice of inks almost a personal preference. Note: I have not yet tried inks which can be cleaned up with water (such as "Aqua-Wash" by Charbonnel) but imagine that the presence of water on the plate would prohibit its use. Nonetheless, something I will still have to test to confirm. Inking up: Spread a reasonable amount of ink (foam rollers need a bit more ink to become well loaded!) on a glass or stone plate and charge the roller. Depending on the make, type and consistency of your ink, you may need to add some linseed oil – but I prefer the ink rather “short” and tacky, not too loose or even soupy. Once you hear the typical “crackling” sound when charging the roller, you know you’ve achieved the right consistency. Start inking up the plate along the wood grain and don’t press the foam roller too hard onto the plate. It is better to roll back and forth a few times until the oily areas start to take ink. This can best be judged on the initially brown areas, painted/drawn with the liquid (asphalt based) Charbonnel Tusche as these areas will start to take the color of the ink. The Rohrer Tusche is dark black; hence any taking of ink is more difficult to see.
Drawing: Polar Bear drawing on birch plywood with Charbonnel Liquid Tusche, using a nib for the very fine lines. Note the coffee mug, a must for long hours! Photo: © courtesy of Jordi Rosés, Arenys de Munt (artprintresidence)
Inking Up: foam roller, flat sponge and water bowl Prussian blue (relief ink). Rolling up along wood grain, drawing is starting to take ink... Photo: © courtesy of Jordi Rosés, Arenys de Munt (artprintresidence)
After a few passes with the ink-loaded foam roller, wipe the plate in light and circular motions, with a well-moistened sponge. This should remove any ink from “open” areas, where no drawing material was applied. When you see, that some areas of the plate may become too dry or start to scum up, squeeze a bit of water from the sponge or use your atomizer to spray water onto these areas. Keep wiping with the sponge and repeat this process until the “open” area is clean again. Note: this sponge should be used for nothing else.
press, with an appropriate blanket type and press setting (see in section “Substrates” above). The use of runners (also called “rails”) is recommended, since even the thinnest of plywood plates are way too thick to print without them, causing the paper to rip (or even break the press when forced through the press rollers). The thickness of the runners should be selected to have the same height as the plywood. Cardboard or sheets of paper can be placed underneath the plywood plate in case some clearance adjustment is required.
Color: Different colors can be applied with separate rollers. But in a strict sense, any of such prints would rather become a monoprint, especially since Mokulito is not really suited to pull strictly identical prints.The application of water soluble pigments to the "open” (aquaphilic = “water loving”) areas of the plate is another option to add color to the prints. Naturally, prints can also be hand–colored after printing and drying.
And now: plate on the press bed, paper and blanket over it and spin the wheel!
Substrates Almost any type of paper will work. I have successfully printed on 9 gr Awagami Tengucho, 20 gr Awagami Mulberry, as well as on 350 gr Hahnemühle intaglio papers and anything in between. However, printing on cold pressed, smooth and untextured paper (e.g. Hahnemühle 190) will require a somewhat different press setup and printing process compared to printing on a heavy, textured intaglio paper. When using cold pressed paper, the press should be set up like printing a relief plate (i.e. thin blanket if any at all and the top press roller just touching the substrate), compared to an intaglio-like set-up (wetted paper, felt blanket and good pressure) for heavy and/or textured paper types. I have even printed on canvas! (See cover photo: Elephant Footprint) With the plywood plate inked up and cleaned as described above, you are now ready to print. Mokulito prints can even be pulled by hand (with a spoon, baren or steel ball baren). However, in my view the best results are achieved with an etching
The first print pulled from Mokulito plates is quite often rather light as the plate has not yet taken on sufficient ink. Inking up a second time as described typically produces a good second print. Continue with pulling prints and don’t stop too long in between or you’ll let the plate become dry. When you realize that the plate scums up more and more despite dire attempts to clean it, you’ve reached one of the restrictions of Mokulito: the number of reasonably good prints of one plate will vary between just a few to a maximum of around thirty. Usually the best prints will be the number two to approximately five+. Cleaning up Once printing is done, it is time to clean up. As mentioned, the use of foam rollers for inking up has the advantage, that you can just remove them from the handle and dispose of them. The plywood plates can be run through the press a few times using newsprint which will remove most of the ink from the plate (and often results in interesting "ghost"-prints!). Wipe putty knives, glass or stone plates with dry rags or paper towels before spreading a bit of organic oil. I use the cheapest available like rape seed or sunflower seed oil for further cleaning. Oil wet rags can then be used to clean the plywood before a final cleaning with de-aromatized turpentine removes the last "fogs" of ink.
Printing: „Polar Bear“ - Mokulito Print on 250 gr Arches 88 paper Print 54x65 cm (21.2 x 25.6") Paper 56x76 cm (22.0x30.0") 2019 Note the runners (or "rails") on both sides of the plywood plate Photo: © courtesy of Jordi Rosés, Arenys de Munt (artprintresidence)
Re-Printing Re-using formerly printed plates has been tried by several Mokulito artists but I have not heard of a really satisfactory result. However, if you want to try it, the process preparing the used plywood plate for a later re-print would be to gum up the plate with Gum Arabic for conservation, let it dry, age and keep it for later printing. When you are ready to use it again, the steps would be the same as already described, i.e. wash off the Gum Arabic and moisten the plate. I have tried the re-print procedure myself and while it seems to work in general, the outcome was nonetheless rather disappointing as I lost the all grey tones and gradations: the print became a mere black-andwhite. Post-Mortem Assessments Depending on the type of wood you used, the grain of the wood tends to come through increasingly prominent the more prints were pulled. Ash shows a distinct and visible wood grain from the first print, while e.g. birch and maple remain “white” in the open areas and might not show any grain at all. Again, this is only a rough guideline, as any plywood might react differently. Despite very early failures in using poplar, later tests were more encouraging, underlining the fact that every piece of plank might be different. Drawing Materials: Liquid Tusches: My preference regarding liquid Tusches is the asphalt based Charbonnel product: it takes ink very well and the brown color on the plate allows visual assessment how much ink the plate is taking; drawing very fine lines with a nib also works well and these lines take (and hold) ink exceptionally good. Dilution (with distilled water, see below “Grey Shadings”) is possible and allows nice gradations. A work-around in case distilled water is not at hand: dip the brush into the tusche, followed by a dip into water to apply, paint and adjust gradations directly on the plate.
This page: Gradation and Re-Printing test: top-left: original Mokulito print (#6) top right: Re-printed Mokulito print bottom right: Mokulito plate used for reduction woodcut Left Page: top: plate used for woodcut bottom: woodcut print „Polar Bear“ Woodcut Print on 280 gr Somerset Velvet Black paper Print 54x65 cm (21.2 x 25.6") Paper 56x76 cm (22.0x30.0") 2019 Photo: © courtesy of Jordi Rosés, Arenys de Munt (artprintresidence)
The Rohrer Liquid Litho Tusche is dark black and leaves the illusion of a well inked drawing while inking up. While the ink acceptance is acceptable, it sems not to be as good as the Charbonnel’s and does not allow visual control how much ink the drawing has already taken. For dilution, the same applies what was mentioned for the Charbonnel Liquid Tusche. Grey Shadings and Gradations: Gradations and grey tones can be achieved with: (a) Dilution of liquid Litho Tusches, (b) Grinding up solid Litho Tusches (from sticks or wax in tins), and (c) Scraping off Tusche from previously painted areas Ad a.) There are comments floating around the internet that liquid Litho Tusches (both Charbonnel and Rohrer) cannot be diluted. This is both true and false: True, if adding carbonate-rich (CaCO3, MgCO3) “hard” water to the Tusches they tend to flocculate, in particular when the liquids are cold. False, when using distilled and luke warm water, dilutions can be prepared for achieving grey tones. Ad b.) Preparing washes by grinding up Litho Tusche sticks, some very fine toned gradations can be achieved. The best washes in my view can be made from the wax type Litho Tusche (Charbonnel), available in tins. You can prepare washes with either water or turpentine, but always use separate containers to prepare the washes and never mix the brushes you use for preparing the solutions and for painting onto the plywood. Ad c.) Use a broken-off piece from a Stanley knife or a razor blade to scrape off already dried liquid Litho Tusche in areas where you want gradation. The extra effect is that the grain of the wood will come through in the scraped areas. Litho Pencils and Crayons: The print number of an edition will depend, again, on many factors – the main one being the type of
wood, but also the drawing material. While any liquid drawing material (Tusches and ground up sticks/wax) will permeate the plywood to some extent, the solid drawing materials (such as litho crayons) will just leave some material on the surface of the wood plate. When using a magnifying glass you will see that this material is more or less flaky but has not penetrated the wood. If you now ink up your plate, the ink from the roller will pick up some of these flakes with every pass over it. As a result, the definition of this drawing will fade and eventually disappear. How fast this will happen, depends on the consistency of the drawing material: soft and “waxy” materials will stay in place longer, while hard flakes will be removed faster. I have also seen the difference with the same product at different temperatures. One time it was very warm and the litho crayons became very soft so that the image stuck to the plate longer compared to working in a cold workshop, where the crayons were pretty brittle. This was the reason behind me trying to heat the drawing (with an industrial heat blower) to make it stick to the plywood better. Outcome: not convincing. Other solid drawing materials like oil pastels and lipstick might also be lifted off during the inking up process, resulting in a fading image. Milk for Plywood Preparation: There are some recommendations around for the use of milk in the preparation of the plywood, i.e. sand, milk, dry; –sand, milk, dry; –sand and draw. My tests did not yield a result which would support this, quite the contrary: the “milked” plywood lost almost all of the drawings already during degumming (washing) and scummed up so quickly that the third print already was significantly worse compared to the “empty” test plate. Most likely, this is caused by the fat content in the milk, which permeates the plate and consequently has an adverse effect for the adhesion of the drawing materials, while its oleophilic nature attracts the ink.
Gradation and Tannic test:
Results:
(image flipped horizontally for ease of comparison): A further test to find the effects of dilution liquids (water vs turpentine) directly applied onto the drawing materials on the plate. Used a Stanley knife blade to scrape off some of the drawing tusches and made a few woodcuts. Finally, gummed up with pure Gum Arabic and a Gum Arabic/ Tannic mixture (brown area). The plate is a Linden plywood (5 mm)
As in earlier tests, Charbonnel Tusche takes ink better than Rohrer; Pebeo markers show very well; turpentine dilution does not show markedly different result compared to water dilution; scraped areas show nice gradation and also the wood grain; Gum Arabic/Tannic mixture showed no difference to pure gum
A very brief Summary on the Mokulito Process Mokulito Advantages + + + + +
Cheap and environmentally friendly process No hazardous chemicals required No litho press required, etching press will do Flat-print and woodcut can be combined on the same plate Plates re-useable for woodcuts (the Mokulito printing process actually makes the wood very soft and easy to cut, less splintering with even low-quality wood like poplar)
Mokulito Disadvantages - Limited number of prints (depending on wood, drawing materials) - No re-prints possible (at least not of any good quality) - Some textures typical for stone litho could not yet be produced (e.g. reticulation)
The "Milk Test": Prepared two plates (intentionally used poplar due to its rather coarse wood texture, allowing liquids to penetrate): The "Milk" plate: sanded, applied milk, dried repeated sanding, milk application, drying and sanding. The “no-milk" plate: sanded Applied same drawing materials as indicated, pure Gum Arabic (left half) and Gum Arabic/Tannic mixture (right half) on both plates and aged for one week. During de-gumming, the "milked" plate already lost a significant amount of drawing material despite careful wiping. Inked up and printed on 350 gr damp HahnemĂźhle paper. (print image flipped horizontally for ease of comparison - please note remark below photo: scummed up area is the lower right). As in earlier tests, Gum Arabic/Tannic mixture showed no difference to pure gum. Performance of drawing materials also similar to earlier tests.
Impressum Text, Layout and Design: Bernhard Cociancig Markt 228 2880 Kirchberg am Wechsel Austria www.keicie.com bernhard@keicie.com All photo credits (except where mentioned) Š 2020 Bernhard Cociancig