Fourth and Final State
Third State
Second State
First Experimental State
Original Pencil Scumble for Plate #2
First Sketches of Ribbon & Textura Inglese, with Printing Notes
February 20
This week has been devoted to the Æthelwold T. With each letter it is becoming clearer that the secret to overlaying color is the preservation of luminosity. This probably sounds obvious but with four colors of ink printed on top of one another it is remarkably difficult to maintain vibrancy. For the T, I had thought that by overlaying different densities of copper glazing I would achieve the "inner light" that I was after. Instead, the resulting color was bland and lifeless (State 2). Further, the outline and right reading type was not stadning out the way I wanted them to. For the tromp l'oeil to work properly, I needed the ribbon to feel elevated from the page. In the end, I started with a ground of bright lemon yellow overprinted with a pale hot pink scumble (see below). Over these I printed two different shading plates in copper glazes and the wrong reading type in a pale bronze. Interestingly, all of these colors are roughly the same value. It is the altering of hue – rather than contrast in value – that provides the depth. When the outline and right reading type were printed in a contrasting blue-bronze the whole image stood off the page.
First and Second Plates in Final Colors
