Exploring Solar Printmaking

As a couple of you know, during the summer I live in a small town in New York called Penn Yan. I love love love it there, and cannot imagine being anywhere else during my glorious summers.  However, surprisingly, living on a lake can get a bit boring.  All of my friends live across the country, I am surrounded by old retired people and I can get a bit grumpy.  So this summer, when my grouchiness started to come on, I decided to sign up for a couple of art classes; one of which was solar printmaking.

Arts Center of Yates County
Photo Courtesy of ycac.org

When I signed up for this class, I had no idea what this was.  I assumed we would making prints of pictures (duh) and using a printing press, but other than that I had no idea what I was getting myself into.  When the class finally came around, I loved it, and had a ton of fun.  The process of solar printmaking involves a long list of tasks, including: printing pictures onto transparent paper, holding heavy solar plates in the sun for a couple seconds, letting the plates dry, and finally, inking your plates and sending them through the printing press.

This is the type of printing press that I used
Image Courtesy of  nontoxic print.com

Though the experience was very fun to do in a class, it is a very

expensive hobby.  Just the printing press can cost thousands of 

dollars, let alone the solar plates, which cost about $20 for one.

However, I recommend that if you ever have an opportunity to do 

this, it is definitely worth it!  Here are some pictures of a
few of the prints that I made this summer.  I also made one of them
into an accordion book, that I will be doing a tutorial on soon!

Print by Maddy Lee (Made from original content)
Image Courtesy of Maddy Lee

Print by Maddy Lee (Made from original content)
Image Courtesy of Maddy Lee

Print by Maddy Lee (Made from original content)
Image Courtesy of Maddy Lee