Print Fest 2 - Katsunori Hamanishi

Artist:	Katsunori Hamanishi
Title:	Silence Work - No.9
Print Type:	Limited Edition Colored Mezzotint with Gold Leaf
Series Title:	Silence Work
Edition No:	70

Whilst at The Print Fest I learnt something new today about mezzotint. The printmaker of the year was Katsuroni Hamanashi who gave an excellent demonstration of what mezzotint was all about. Here was this quint essential Japanese man complete with goatee beard talking to us entirely in Japanese (with an excellent translator) taking a room full of people through the many many intricate stages of mezzotint. The exquisite print on the left was the one he used to demonstrate with.

First was two aluminium shaped plates which were inked up, one in green , the other in yellow ochre, placed on the press bed with his registration sheet and printed.

Stage two, leaving the paper trapped in the rollers, the mezzotint plate was inked up using black ink and over printed on top of the green and yellow ochre.

Stage three, another shapped plate was inked up with a much stickier red ink which acted as a type of glue and he showed us how the delicate gold leaf was applied to the top of the print. This image doesn't do justice to the real thing.

My brain was whirling with the possibilities.