Wokka Wokka Studio

  Another Relief Exercise in ABS Engravers Plastic This is another project using ABS engraver's plastic. Same 1/20" thick 8"x12" sheet.  This one is titled "Poulet! Poulet!". It is a favorite scene from a favorite classic film, To Catch a Thief. In it, Grace Kelly's character has been driving Cary Grant's character at high speed to escape police surveillance. She has to brake hard for a chicken in the road. After she drives on, we hear a crash. In the next scene, the police are on the radiophone trying to explain why they crashed while the chicken strolls in the road.  As seems to be my usual fate, I didn't like where the first cutting was going and recut the plate.  This was the first time I used multi-line tools. The men's suits are toned with a 45 lpi 1/8" tool. I also made extensive use of the rotary file. The foreground roadway was made by repeatedly touching the cone file bit to the material to leave plenty of black. The shadow is...

 Relief Printmaking With ABS Engravers' Plastic  Part I - What is it? This blog is about using ABS plastic as a relief printing plate material. It is worthy in its own right and is also a useful alternative to wood, such as boxwood, for carving. Along the way of learning to work with ABS, I encountered new tools and methods, and all that will eventually be covered here. I am grateful to Chris Pig of Black Pig Studio for the YouTube videos he posted about this material.  We will use ABS to make relief printing plates, similar to linocut and printed much the same way. I will assume for now that you are familiar with the principles of relief printing and the design requirement of the images.  Engravers' plastic is a thin sheet of ABS plastic, commonly coated on one side with one color and a core of another. For sign-making, the color coat is laser cut. For us, it will be an aid in cutting. One significant thing is that it is only 1/20 of an inch thick, which will come t...