Sunday, I participated in a workshop as part of the College Book Arts Association conference in Bloomington. The workshop was given by Amanda Lee, a graduate student at IU. We assembled in the printing studios on campus and got to work right
away.

We learned about the chemicals involved with the salt printing processes. It is important that these ratios are precise or the results will be affected. We required a solution of salt and a solution of silver to make the prints. In this instance, the salt was to be mixed with gelatin as opposed to the usual way for salt printing.

Next, we talked about the silk screen process and how this would be used for our purposes. I’ve screen printed before and was eager to get back into it again. In this workshop, we would use the screens to put the salt solution onto the prints.

Since the salt solution was mixed with gelatin, its consistency was thicker like the paint used in screen printing allowing us to put the solution on like a typical screen print. I tried prints the salt solution brushed on as well as screen printed.

(both versions are at the end)

We weretaught how to expose an image or how to draw directly onto a screen. The drawing on the right is the design I exposed on my screen.

This is screen printed using the salt solution first. Next was to coat the paper with the silver solution (in the dark room).

After the negative was in place over the coated paper, it was brought outside to
expose.

Seen here is everything in an exposing frame. The glass of the frame keeps everything close together during the exposure. This is the fun part when the image takes form in front of your eyes.

The print had to be rinsed…fixed…rinsed again…and finally dried.

The workshop was great, and it was taught in such a way that have the knowledge of how to do this at home. Thanks to Amanda for such a great workshop!