Half-page advertisement in "The Unexpected" #135, 1972.
Lately, I've been trying to master the relationship between dot patterns and the finite color value options of vintage four-color process. Typically there were only three basic values for cyan, magenta, and yellow: 100%, 50%, and 25%, which were combined to create the optical illusion of 45-65 colors. (70% was also used sometimes.) These values account for the way a constituent color may appear as large or small dots or as what looks like a solid color with dots knocked out of it.
When you blow up process printing, you eliminate nearly all of the intended colors. There is no illusion of anything anymore, and no human intention behind what you're seeing. It's just the rudimentary building blocks of an inexpensive mechanical printing process, thrown into accidental relationships at the microscopic level.
The spatial relationships among dots become infinitely varied, due to differences in the alignment of the individual printing plates' tiny patterns. Some alignments are stable, while others seem to vibrate. True, blended colors are created where dots overlap, while the constituent colors remain where there is no overlap. Small errors in the color separation become spectacular boundaries between larger spaces. I find the results to be quite delicious.
