 Applying the powdered pigment  The finished calendar page |
One of the haiku for my 2012 calendar starts “iridescent hummingbird” so I wanted the illustration that goes along with the poem to sparkle. When I printed my book Winter, I had wanted to do the same thing to the stars on the cover. I tried using silver metallic oil-based ink, but the stars still looked pretty flat. Then Lisa Rappoport suggested I brush a powdered metallic pigment onto the ink before it dries to get the sparkle I was looking for. The method had worked then, so I gave it another try.I printed the hummingbird illustration in batches of 15 or so, spread them out, and used a brush to paint on the pigment. It’s a very fine dust and painting inside the lines isn’t my forte but a squirt of compressed air to the paper got rid of the excess.(In case you’re wondering why there are holes at the top of the sheets in the first picture, I use a pin registration system to hold the pages onto my press when printing, rather than the more traditional paper guides.)
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