ARTWORK METHODS…
…sticking little B&W prints onto a piece of cardboard…
…three basic types of artwork:
- one colour 'base art' a/w;
- two colour version with an overlay matching the base art, and
- full '4 colour separations' with register marks…
…all your chosen design elements (text, images, line drawings, diagrams & tables etc) had to be stuck onto a thick board in exactly the right place at exactly the right size…
…if you wanted some elements to overlap each other - or print another colour - you had to stick them on a transparent-ish overlay that exactly matched up with the 'base art' board below it - with carefully drawn & positioned 'register marks' to accurately align them together…
…the 'bleed' guidelines show any bits you want to go (or bleed) over the edges of your design - where the 'crop marks' are showing the printer where to cut it all out…
…& ARTWORKING STUFF…
…my original equipment -
top right:
- Cow Gum Rubber Solution - a spreadable glue…
- Photo Opaquer - for touching up print & neg marks & scratches…
- Lighter Fluid - for cleaning up glues…
instruments - from left:
- two Letraset transfer sheet Burnishers…
- the much-used Pointy Stabby thing - for repositioning gluey prints…
- a Scalpel - with 10A blade…
- Compass & tech pen with old-fashioned ink ruling pen in between…
- a vital blue pencil - a still used Berol Verithin…
- a mechanical pencil…
- and last and most importantly, my Rotring Rapidograph - a needle nibbed technical drawing pen - that one's a 0.2mm part of a set ranging from 0.1 to 3mm for ruling lines and drawing illustrations - including painstaking clouds of tiny dots…!
bottom left: T Square - for ruling parallel horizntal lines; and a Set Square - for vertical lines & fancy angles…!
THE PROCESS CAMERA…
…how to make all the prints to stick onto your artwork…
WHAT IT DOES / DID
…a 'Process Camera' is basically a giant open camera - that performs as a very hi-tech photocopier…
…it was mainly used to make high contrast B&W photo prints - with no shades of grey or 'continuous tones' like a regular photograph…
…Those prints were known as 'pos. line prints' or PMT's (Photo Mechanical Transfers) and were the vital ingredient for making any artwork…
Also, and importantly, the original being copied could be resized up to 400% larger and down to 25% smaller in one go…
Moreover, and crucially, it could make the tiny dot prints using a magical (& expensive) Halftone Screen…
These came in a variety of dot size from 60 dots per inch up to a then incredible 300dpi… …even better, you could get screens that made random short line marks (steel etching) instead of dots or tiny squiggly marks (like a mezzotint) - oh happy daze indeed…!
HOW YOU DID IT
1: put the item to be copied on the lightbox glass screen at the bottom...
2: open the lid - to see your item projected back up onto a clear glass screen...
3: depending on what new size you want - fit the reducing or enlarging lens in place...
4: to get the required size you'd slowly & carefully rotate the two handles until you got the exact size and a crisp focus...
5: on the top left shelf was an A3 box of negative photo paper - after remembering to draw your blackout curtains! - take out a suitably-sized piece of neg. paper and place it over the resized image on the top glass...
6: close the lid & lock it and switch on the vacuum - dial (at the top, pump below...)
7: after working out the exposure time, set the timer dial (7) and hit the Go (8) button...
9: immeadiately the two powerful double halogen lamps would blast into life...
10: top right was an A3 box of positve paper - taking, or cutting out, a matching size to the neg - sandwich them both exactly together and feed through 2 rollers turning
in a developer-filled box (unfortunately not shown - but 'off stage right'...)
11: after waiting 60 seconds, carefully peel apart and discard the neg. paper...
12: finally, open the curtains and look at your freshly made pos. line print...
13: ...and, if 13 is a lucky number for you - you've just got your first artwork print..!