soft ground experiments

With time to spare in the workshop today I decided to try some experiments in soft ground etching. Soft ground has always been my favourite way to create etched images but as we are a 'non toxic' workshop the traditional method of melting wax onto the plate is out. I read that Graphic Chemical relief ink can be used as a ground; soft when it's wet and then also as a hard ground when it's dry, and thought it might be worth a try...


I tried various thicknesses of ink, applied with a roller, and various different tools to draw both through paper (which lifts off ground) and directly (which displaces it). I tried drawing on the plate as soon as it was coated, then at 10 minute intervals as the ink dried. Unlike my previous attempts with a different acrylic soft ground, this ink seems to dry quite slowly giving a large window of opportunity for drawing... top image drawn through paper after 5 mins, bottom drawn after 35 mins...

I also tried painting with various consistencies of the ink directly on the un-coated plate, and used water to dissolve parts creating the opposite effect...

I didn't get chance to etch the plates as the ink takes up to 24 hours to dry depending on thickness, but I can't wait to see what they all turn out like as it feels quite promising. Now I've just got to work out the etching times...

P.S. I like the little mono prints made with the removed ink too :)

skull problem

I've been having a bit of trouble with my skull prints... They're etchings, and to print etchings the paper must be soaked. But paper, when soaked tends to stretch and shrink, which, to my dismay, doesn't go well at all with the precise measurements associated with concertina books...


So after spending the morning printing 5 strips of eight plates I found the next day they were about 2cm shorter and the pages wouldn't line up at all. That's the way to learn I suppose, it seems to be the way I'm learning at the moment at least... So. Onto plan B.


Individual sewn pages?
On a concertina spine?
French folded?

I wish there were more hours in the day!

work in progress

It's half term this week which means I finished work at half four instead of half eight, and for the first time this year I left work in the day light, a thing to be celebrated! It's still light as I type this and it feels like such a liberation, the birds are singing, I survived winter again...

And I've been working on some etchings; skulls I drew after my visit to the Natural History Museum. There's something about them all lined up in cases; categorised, classified. What is it that appeals to me? Diagrammed and named, no flesh.

Below is a proof of the etched plates, pieces of copper 6cm square, just the lines...


And with the aquatint solution sprayed across the surface, stopped out with acrylic paint, ready to etch...


Another proof, this time after the aquatint. So far so good.


I'm planning to make a little concertina book with these prints, with a slip case to contain it. Tomorrow.

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...

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!