ART RECIPES
Ingredients
Directions
Level: Beginner
-
A piece of veneer or other wood to print on
-
Images and text that you want to transfer to the wood
-
Photocopies of the images from an old black and white copy machine
1 - Chose a piece of wood to print on. Cut it to size if needed. Nanna used birch veneer for the prints because it is very light in the color and receives the print well, but other wood surfaces work as well, as long as they are not to greasy from the natural resin or oil in the wood.
2 - Sand the wood with a piece of 180grain sandpaper, to remove any smudges and to make the surface smooth and open to receive the print. Use a dust mask while you are sanding.
3 - Clean the wood with a cotton cloth and acetone to remove any traces of oil in the surface, and sand it lightly one more time. Make sure to clean for dust before you print. Use a mask for chemical solvents when you work with the acetone.
4 - Have the photocopies ready – you can photocopy anything you like, your own photographs, images you have found in books and magazines or anything that will fit in a copy machine, but remember that the images will be printed in reverse, so if you use text you have to reverse it in an image program in a computer before you photocopy it. Also remember that some images are under copyright, so be sure that the images you use are free of copyright. Prepare 3 photocopies to make a perfect fit, if you need to go over an area more than once, by poking a hole in each corner with a needle in the exact same place.
5 - Mount one photocopy on the wood with 4 pins in the corners and with the printed surface facing the wood. Pour a little acetone in a glass jar. Dip the brush in the acetone, wipe off excess acetone in a cotton cloth and work the brush over the back of the photocopy immediately with a firm pressure. Repeat until you have covered all the printed area.
6 - Remove the photocopy and inspect the image to see if it needs going over again. Mark the faint areas on the back of the next photocopy with a pencil to see where you need to work it over again. Mount the photocopy with pins in the prepared holes to match the tiny holes in the wood from the first print.
7 - Finally you can retouch details with a tiny brush and acetone drawing color from an extra photocopy or you can use a fine permanent ink marker.
"Lexikon"
by Nanna Gro Henningsen.
Lexikon, 2015, Wood, ink
Total Time:
2 hrs 15 min
Prep: 45 min | Cook: 1 hr 30min
About the artists
Nanna Gro Henningsen is a visual artist and associated professor at The Jutland Art Academy and Aarhus School of Architecture. She has previous experience in curating and organizing artist run exhibition spaces and projects. She has also been chairing the Association of Visual Artists in Denmark (BKF), a member of the representational comitee for The Danish Arts Council, board member of The Danish Council of Artists, The Nordic Institute of Contemporary Art, The Sleipnir Foundation and Charlottenborg Fonden. Currently she is a member of the board of Kunsthal Aarhus and the artist run gallery TYS in Copenhagen.
She works with installations, photographs, video, prints and text. Her focus is the exchange of knowledge, politics and practise between artists, artist run collectives, institutions and curators, the power relations in the field of visual arts and how to establish best practises for the collaboration of artists and institutions.
Tools
-
Sandpaper grain 180
-
And old stubby paint brush
-
Small pins or needles
-
A small hammer
-
A cottoncloth
-
Acetone
-
A glass jar for the acetone
-
A fine brush or fine black permanent ink pen for retouching the image
