We live near the Santa Cruz Coast in CA, USA. The studio can be "coolish" but never below 60 degrees F and late summer into 80s F--certainly not like your part of the world. I think I put this layer on in early Feb. It's still drying. When I use oil paints, I like to have "mixing white" with a little zinc white which dries a little faster and is a little more transparent than pure opaque titanium. That's why I asked Cranfield about a "mixing white"for the Safe Wash. I've tried gently blowing with low temp hair dryer to get air moving on hanging prints. I'm going to smash this one between some blotter paper now as it is still tacky to the touch. It's now one more test piece anyway. I have found that Safe wash black does dry quickly-- almost too quickly for a series. The orange mixed from process yellow and process magenta and a "nick" of wax dryer dried within a few days. The process yellow with a "nick" of wax dryer on first layer dried in a day or so. The green with process yellow and cyan and nick of dryer in a day. I'll keep experimenting.
Thank-you ever so much for all your expertise and willingness to share the good, the bad, and the ugly! Mary comfort
Yes your climate is probably a little different from here! But more than a month drying must be incredibly frustrating and quite baffling. I wonder if there is actually something wrong with that tube of ink? I hope you find a solution. It's encouraging though to hear that the wax driers seem to work well with the other colours - it sounds like they make quite a difference, and I'm looking forward to using something that isn't strongly coloured as that of course is another issue with cobalt driers, which are great for dark colours but not so good for white or yellow!
I'm fairly new to lino printing. Started with the Caligo Safe Wash Process set. Played with the extender. With new little reduction print used tiny bit of their wax drier. However, I did not discover wax drier at first and, yes, it appears that opaque white takes FOREVER to dry--especially as a layer over layers of extended ink on a light weight paper. Did you ever add a drier to your Safe Wash opaque white? I even had an extended correspondence with Michael from Cranfield to ask if he had a mixing white with zinc for instance. Not in the Safe Wash. So, when I use it next time I will add wax drier and sees what happens. I just splurged on an extended range of the Caligo Safe Wash (Ultramaraine only comes in a tin) in much the same colors as you did for the Traditional. So, I need to save my investment. Did you ever ask Cranfield (Caligo) about a quicker drying Safe Wash White? Thanks! Mary Comfort
Hi Mary, I think we are at cross purposes here! Possibly my fault for a confusing post...
I didn't have any trouble with Caligo Safe Wash drying, in fact I had the opposite problem with the ink drying while I was still working with it. When I taught day workshops I gave the students white, black and cyan to work with as they all dried quite quickly. I hadn't discovered Cranfield's Wax Driers then so I used a generic cobalt driers to speed things along even more. I did find the Safe Wash yellow and red dried much more slowly so I discouraged students from using those. (I did have one who absolutely insisted on using red and guess what, her prints weren't dry enough to take home at the end of the day so she had to come back a few days later). I'm surprised to hear you have been having trouble with white drying so I can't be much help with a solution - sorry! The white that has been giving me grief is another range of professional inks. I wrote about it more in this post -
One theory suggested was that the studio was so cold that the ink was drying on the surface before the ink below had dried, so sort of sealing in the wet ink. Is your studio very cold? I hope you get some good results with your new colours :)
We live near the Santa Cruz Coast in CA, USA. The studio can be "coolish" but never below 60 degrees F and late summer into 80s F--certainly not like your part of the world. I think I put this layer on in early Feb. It's still drying. When I use oil paints, I like to have "mixing white" with a little zinc white which dries a little faster and is a little more transparent than pure opaque titanium. That's why I asked Cranfield about a "mixing white"for the Safe Wash. I've tried gently blowing with low temp hair dryer to get air moving on hanging prints. I'm going to smash this one between some blotter paper now as it is still tacky to the touch. It's now one more test piece anyway. I have found that Safe wash black does dry quickly-- almost too quickly for a series. The orange mixed from process yellow and process magenta and a "nick" of wax dryer dried within a few days. The process yellow with a "nick" of wax dryer on first layer dried in a day or so. The green with process yellow and cyan and nick of dryer in a day. I'll keep experimenting.
Thank-you ever so much for all your expertise and willingness to share the good, the bad, and the ugly! Mary comfort
Yes your climate is probably a little different from here! But more than a month drying must be incredibly frustrating and quite baffling. I wonder if there is actually something wrong with that tube of ink? I hope you find a solution. It's encouraging though to hear that the wax driers seem to work well with the other colours - it sounds like they make quite a difference, and I'm looking forward to using something that isn't strongly coloured as that of course is another issue with cobalt driers, which are great for dark colours but not so good for white or yellow!
I'm fairly new to lino printing. Started with the Caligo Safe Wash Process set. Played with the extender. With new little reduction print used tiny bit of their wax drier. However, I did not discover wax drier at first and, yes, it appears that opaque white takes FOREVER to dry--especially as a layer over layers of extended ink on a light weight paper. Did you ever add a drier to your Safe Wash opaque white? I even had an extended correspondence with Michael from Cranfield to ask if he had a mixing white with zinc for instance. Not in the Safe Wash. So, when I use it next time I will add wax drier and sees what happens. I just splurged on an extended range of the Caligo Safe Wash (Ultramaraine only comes in a tin) in much the same colors as you did for the Traditional. So, I need to save my investment. Did you ever ask Cranfield (Caligo) about a quicker drying Safe Wash White? Thanks! Mary Comfort
Hi Mary, I think we are at cross purposes here! Possibly my fault for a confusing post...
I didn't have any trouble with Caligo Safe Wash drying, in fact I had the opposite problem with the ink drying while I was still working with it. When I taught day workshops I gave the students white, black and cyan to work with as they all dried quite quickly. I hadn't discovered Cranfield's Wax Driers then so I used a generic cobalt driers to speed things along even more. I did find the Safe Wash yellow and red dried much more slowly so I discouraged students from using those. (I did have one who absolutely insisted on using red and guess what, her prints weren't dry enough to take home at the end of the day so she had to come back a few days later). I'm surprised to hear you have been having trouble with white drying so I can't be much help with a solution - sorry! The white that has been giving me grief is another range of professional inks. I wrote about it more in this post -
https://open.substack.com/pub/janeduke/p/just-when-it-was-going-so-well?r=1kh5mv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
One theory suggested was that the studio was so cold that the ink was drying on the surface before the ink below had dried, so sort of sealing in the wet ink. Is your studio very cold? I hope you get some good results with your new colours :)