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Gallery 69 – Tyler Tork

Hello and welcome to yet another installment of the highlighting of an artist whose work is featured in Gallery 69! Tyler Tork is actually a VIP in the world of Free Little Art Galleries as he runs the web site freelittleartgalleries.art, and that’s how I met him. I listed Gallery 69 there and then he got in touch with me saying he’d be passing through town and was interested in stopping by!

And he did, and he brought some art for the gallery! He also had books, and I bought a copy of The Goodnight Agency for my partner, who happens to enjoy and teach literature. Tyler also makes art and other interesting/strange things, so check that out as well.

Some of Tyler’s things are 3D printed, and I’m pretty sure you remember that I’ve been 3D printing things since around 2011 or so. The chain pulls and light switch plate are 3D printed! The earrings are from another book Tyler wrote titled “The Deep End”. (I also really like the “Sad Computer Guy” magnet.)

I had a bit of a hiatus curating the gallery in the past month due to some health issues, but I’ve also been making a lot of prints and just did a refresh of all new things! Tyler’s stuff is going in there today and I’ll be digging through the archives for more art and asking other artists I know to contribute in the new year so keep an eye on the gallery for more! I often posts photos of the gallery’s new stuff on Facebook, so go be my friend there maybe.

Oh! You can also find Tyler on Facebook and Instagram, so check those out!

Gallery 69 is a Free Little Art Gallery located on 69th street just north of Locust street in the Enderis Park neighborhood of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

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Water-Based Printing Inks

I like Water-Based Printing Inks. Yeah, I said it. Below I will explain in detail (possibly too much detail) why I like Water-Based Printing Inks.

First, some background. I’ve been printing for, well over three decades now. Yes, I am old. That doesn’t mean I know everything, or know more than you do, but it does mean I’ve observed a lot over the years. Second, I am cheap, or should I say, I like to keep things low-cost when I can. When I was printing shirts for punk bands and my own art in the early 1990s I would often get the cheapest shirts, scrounge materials, and buy low-cost things, and I could sell shirts for under $5 and still make a (small) profit. I mean, it wasn’t about the profits, it was about spreading art and making it accessible. Anyway, forget all that.

Printmakers will tell you to avoid water-based inks, and there certainly are reasons to do so, but I use them for two reasons. They are cheap and they are easy.

Cheap

Compared to “good quality” oil based inks, water-based inks are going to be much cheaper. sometimes close to half the price. For me, this means I can get more colors, and right now I am all about the colors. If you buy a print from a professional printmaker it will probably have been printed with high quality oil based ink. If you buy a (cheap) print from me it will probably be done using water-based ink.

Note that I said “professional printmaker” above. I do not consider myself a professional. I am a printmaker but I do it for fun, to explore, to learn, and if I ever make money from it, cool… but again, I am interested in spreading art around for cheap.

Using water-based inks means I can make prints cheap, and sell them cheap. I like that, as it makes art more accessible.

Easy

Easy has a few components to it, the most important being that it’s easy to clean up. Water-based inks can be cleaned up with soap and water. That’s it. Like washing dishes. There are some hybrid inks that are oil-based but water-soluble or water-miscible. They cam be cleaned with water, sort of, but in a specific way, and you’re not supposed to put the water down your drain.

So here’s the deal… If I make it easy to print, I am going to be more likely to print. If cleanup is a pain in the ass, I won’t want to do it. If cleanup is super-simple, then I don’t mind it at all.

One issue with water-based inks are that they can be difficult to work with for a long period as they dry up while you are trying to print. You can add a few drops of vegetable glycerin to the ink to prolong your printing time but for me, it doesn’t matter because I am quick.

Often a printmaking session for me is done in well under 15 minutes. I often only make a half dozen prints. I’m not doing huge runs, but just a few at a time. Sometimes I do a few prints in the morning before work, get everything cleaned up, and the whole process is less than 20 minutes.

Since I am using the Provisional Press I’m not hand burnishing prints or rubbing a spoon for five minutes. I can roll that press and get a print in seconds. It’s not about going as fast as possible, but I’m not taking minutes per print, so that ink is not getting a chance to dry on the brayer.

Anyway, that’s my argument for water-based inks, and why they work for my specific needs. I don’t expect everyone to work the way I do, but I think that if you want to use water-based inks because they are cheap and easy you can totally do that. I support you!

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Fancy Sanding Blocks

About a year ago I “designed” (ha ha!) and 3D printed the Super Boring Sanding Block which has served me well for sanding miscellaneous wood in the shop, but I found a nice parametric sanding block for OpenSCAD so I thought I’d give it a try.

You can adjust the length, width, and height, and basically make it any size you want. I made mine to fit the sheets of sandpaper I normally buy. I’ve now got six of them with various grit for each one so I can just grab the right one and get to work. (I also added labels to each using the Niimbot.)

My one complaint (which someone else also had) is that you can’t easily figure out the size needed to fit a specific length of sandpaper. I don’t know if there is some OpenSCAD wizardry or maths that would do this for you, but my solution was to print a really thin version (repeatedly) and adjusting the numbers until it properly fit my sandpaper, then I made full width versions. Things like sanding blocks are a perfect match for 3D printing.

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Handmade Paper

If you read the previous post you saw the mould and deckle I made, and the start of the process of making paper using the mould and deckle. Well, once the paper dries it looks quite different!

Here’s a stack after the pieces have dried. They are not exactly flat, as they curl up while drying. I couch them onto cut up pieces of an old bed sheet. I don’t press them when they are wet, I just let them air dry while laying flat, which takes about a day or so.

(Most people will tell you to press the paper when wet to remove the water and to flatten it, but I just sort of do it the way I’m doing it and so far it seems to be working fine.)

Once the sheets are fully dry that’s when I press them. I put each piece between a sheet of 3mm thick Baltic Birch plywood and then put the stack between two steel plates in a hydraulic press. (Here’s a press similar to the one I have.)

I’m still experimenting with the right amount of pressure. If I totally crank the press down hard I can get some very flat (and sometimes very thin) paper. One batch was actually a bit too thin! This batch is a bit thicker (since it was made better) but I also didn’t apply quite as much pressure, so it would retain some of the texture. Either way, one side is going to be much smoother (the side that dried face up) and the side that was against the bed sheet will have some texture to it.

Wait, bed sheets? Yeah, this is all pretty DIY, and I’m mostly using materials I have available and not purchasing a bunch of stuff. As I mentioned in the mould and deckle post I am using old window screen material because I have a bunch of it.

To make the pulp I am using paper shreds create by our home paper shredder. I’m making sure I don’t shred any envelopes with plastic windows or other strange matter (though my first batch did contain plastic!) The paper is never white because the ink/toner/whatever from the paper mixes with the water and pulp and turns it gray, which is fine. I do plan to experiment with some colorants. If you notice the brown speckles in this batch that comes from a bunch of dried up leaves I harvested from the garden. I crunched them up and added them to the pulp when blending it. I think it adds some nice character to the final product.

I was able to make a total of 16 sheets on the attempt, which isn’t bad, as I am somewhat limited in space. I’m starting to get to the point where I know how much pulp and water to use and how much it will make, so that’s good. I should probably measure things and write it down but at this point I’m still just screwing around to see what works and what the outcome is… Stay Tuned!

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3D Printed Mould and Deckle

NOTE: STL files are now available. Scroll to the bottom of this post.

Back in May 2023 I 3D printed a mould and deckle in an attempt to make my own paper. It worked, but was not optimal. I tried again, and wanted a slightly larger mould and deckle to make larger paper. It worked, but I didn’t love it since I had to print it in two parts and glue it together. Design is about iteration, right? I think I’ve got a good one now…

For this version I got the model just right. I did a number of test prints to make sure the wall thickness for the inside grid was correct, and I spent some time getting the magnet holes right. Yes, the magnets. Lots of mould and deckles are just two wooden frames you hold together in your hands, but I figured since I was designing my own I would add in magnets that would tightly hold the mould and the deckle together with a piece of metal screen between them.

So I added magnet holes in the four corners of each part and press-fit magnets into place. This time I made the pockets deeper so the magnets press in further down, which means they have really good holding strength when put together. You’ll notice the holes aren’t just holes, but have some little ridges, or “crush ribs” as well. The idea being that with 3D printed parts it can be difficult to get a perfect hole, so instead you just make the hole a little wider than needed, and add in some ribs so the magnet (or other round thing) just needs to slide against those, and if needed, can crush them a bit.

Hey, I guess I’m not the only one who likes the magic of magnets! Check out this video of Stephanie Hare and the mould and deckles she made with… magnets! (Or see them on her site.)

Of course you can always just glue the magnets in place. Since I’m now on my third fourth mould and deckle I wanted a way to remove them easily if I ever retire one and want those 8 magnets back.

I’ve mentioned before that you can do much much more than a simple square or rectangle, and you can 3D print a mould and deckle in any shape. I still want to experiment with that, as well as some other neat stuff. I like a plastic mould and deckle because (besides being easy) you don’t have to worry about warping like you do with wood, or having to use spar varnish or polyurethane to waterproof the wood. (I’ve talked about 3D printing versus using wood before.)

Oh, I should note one more thing. The reason I use window screen material is because I have a bunch of it from our old windows that we’ll never use for anything else. But, using a flexible screen material also makes it easy to remove the paper from the mould and deckle during the couching process by just pulling the screen off (after removing excess water with a sponge). (BTW, it’s pronounced ‘coo-ching’ not ‘cow-ching’.) I’ve found this a simple method of couching, though there are other methods and some special tools to assist with it if you want to explore other routes.

3D printing is a good fit for papermaking because it’s one of those things where you may need to build your own tools, and being able to rapidly iterate through ideas is handy. Okay, time to go make more paper!

Update! Files are now available.
Grab the STL files to print your own at Printables.com – Mould and Deckle.