ferns

Some more etchings, that developed from the experiments I spoke of the other day...

I started of with some line drawings of the little ferns I found growing in the courtyard outside...


(you can see more detail if you click on the images) I then put on an aquatint ground (using speedball screen filler in an airbrush, we don't use rosin as it's pretty toxic!) and stopped out various areas to create this...



I'm still not sure which I like best (before or after the aquatint), but there's no going back now :) I blocked out the areas of tone fairly freely, with not too much of an idea of what I wanted to end up with. They're not perfect (and it's made me realise that I need much more practice inking up and printing the plate, its so hard to get it even) but they could've been worse, definitely something to build upon...



I want to try and combine some of these prints with my books, perhaps on the cover, or inside as endpapers, hopefully I'd get chance to have a play around with that next week...