Etching

On Monday we had a full day induction in printmaking, working with etching.

It is a process that I am not very familiar with, and, like a lot of other forms of printmaking, is very systematic and process oriented.

We tried out both hard-ground and soft-ground, and aquatint. The plates were made from copper, and we used ferric chloride which is an alkaline as opposed to an acid.

This is the hard-ground plate, and below is the print from the plate. I tried out lots of different tools, and the quality of line is extremely crisp and delicate.

The soft-ground plate is more fragile than the hard-ground, and one needs to draw on the plate on the same day as the ground is put on (unlike hard-ground which can be left for years before being drawn onto).

Soft-ground produces softer lines, and picks up the texture from fingerprints, lace, feathers etc. I experimented with scrunching up paper and pressing different shapes cut of of card onto the plate. I also pressed rubber bands into the ground.

I also added some drawn lines on the plate, like the hard ground in order to see the difference in quality of marks produced by soft and hard ground.

I have not yet finished the aquatint process which we applied to the hard-ground plate. The aquatint should give areas of tone. 

All will be revealed later!