In her talk about the creation of digitally printed fills, graduate fellow Carolyn Burns focused on the conservation treatment of a matte screenprint entitled
Horizon ’72, by artist Noriko Yamamoto Prince. Project advisors included Theresa Smith, Jiuan Jiuan Chen, Aaron Shugar, and Rebecca Ploeger. The presentation described examination techniques and treatment goals, followed by a detailed exploration of the potential fill techniques and the challenges encountered during color matching.
Carolyn began her presentation with a brief biography of the artist and an overview of her work. According to Carolyn, while Noriko Yamamoto Prince began her career creating organic, abstract art influenced by both eastern and western calligraphy, her style moved toward geometric minimalism over time.
Horizon ’72 reflects her later, geometric style, and is stylistically similar to her oil paintings from the same time period.
As is described in the
abstract for the talk, screenprints pose a unique challenge for inpainting, and can be a source of frustration for paper conservators (myself included!). Due to the smooth, matte surface of the applied media, traditional inpainting techniques are often highly noticeable, no matter how carefully executed. In order to better understand the printing sequence and the condition of the print, Carolyn examined the print in infrared and ultraviolet radiation, and captured fantastic images during examination which she shared with the audience. She then explained the screenprinting process and the order in which the layers were printed using a series of diagrams. The major condition issues of concern were a number of losses, scratches, and areas of compressed media which were caused by glazing that broke during transit. Because the printing inks were fairly transparent, the striped, layered areas posed a particular challenge for loss compensation.
While Carolyn tested a number of traditional inpainting materials and techniques, including brush application, screenprinting, and spray-applied media, none were considered successful, because they did not create perfectly uniform layers of color. Carolyn was inspired to pursue digital fills as a possible solution by Victoria Binder’s 2013 paper,
“Digital Fills for Photographs with Glossy Surfaces.” After learning more about the permanence of inkjet materials, Carolyn chose to use an Epson Stylus Pro 4900 large format printer with Epson Premium Presentation Paper for loss compensation. She hoped that inkjet print fills would fulfill her goals of mimicking the texture, matte finish, and color of the original print.
In order to match the color of the inkjet print fills to the screenprint, Carolyn used the eyedropper tool in Photoshop to create a contact sheet with numerous swatches that varied slightly in color and tone. She labeled each swatch with its RGB values, and then compared the printed contact sheet to the screenprint to find the closest match. As Carolyn explained, this was necessary because the differences in color spaces between the camera, computer, and printer can led to differences between the captured color and the printed color. She also used an X-Rite spectrophotometer to compare L*a*b* values of the digitally printed contact sheet to the original screen print and to quantify how closely they matched. The red pigment in the print proved particularly challenging to match, but Carolyn eventually found a close match by printing and comparing numerous color swatches. In order to attach the fills, she pared down the back of the inkjet paper and adhered the fills using Lascaux 498.
Overall Carolyn considered the technique successful, and she was able to meet the treatment goals. The audience was impressed with her precise execution of the fills. The follow-up discussion included a question about how the fills had been cut so precisely, as well as a question about printer profiles.
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