experiments

I've been doing some more etching experiments (continuing on from the vaseline ones a few months ago), this time with oil based printing ink...


The ink doeasn't hold up very well in the ferric (the chemical used to etch the plate) but because of this, and depending on the ink's thickness, it gives a lovely speckly etch, which you can see if you click on this picture to enlarge it...


It's hard to catch it at the right moment, too long and all you get is black... not a good look! I tried various ways of applying the ink; directly with a roller, transfered from another plate by passing through the press, smearing with a cloth, and inking up ferns and pressing these onto the pre aqautinted plate.

Here I applied ink with a roller, then ferns, then run it all through the press so the ferns picked up the ink and left the copper exposed. It wasn't as successful as I hoped!


And this is kind of the opposite process; ink from the ferns transferred to the aquatint plate (the scratches are becuase I was using the backs of old plates for my experiments, copper is expensive these days!) I think this has potential for use as a background, in a lighter colour (but don't get me started on colour, there's too much to think about already!)


This is the print that was left on the paper when I ran the first plate through the press...


And this one is a print of the ink left on the ferns...


I like these mono prints, you can really see the detail of the ferns if you click to make the image bigger :) And they're so quick and surprising to produce (remember the bird mono prints I did a while back? I've been wanting to have a go at that with plants (as opposed to paper cut outs) for a while now, hopefully I'll get chance to try it out next week!)

I feel like I'm getting somewhere with these etchings though, it's difficult as there are so many variables, but I also kind of like that, it's partly out of my control and I feel like that gives me the freedom to mess it up. I'm not trying to make anything 'finnished' with these, just to see what's possible. The hard bit comes when I try to take a bit more control and it becomes my fault when it looks rubbish; insted of being able to put it down to chance, fate or accident the outcome relies more on skill. Scary prospect!