This was a fairly early etching on my ‘printmaking journey’. Stopping out was more meticulous than my eyes allowed for, especially with the studio gloopy gloop. And aquatinting involved careful and crucial timings! Each stem and simplified seed was individually ‘stopped out’ (painted with an acrylic resist (gloop) to stop the etch from biting into the copper plate). This followed the line etching process. A pretty delicate job, especially with my dodgy keratoconus multi-vision!
If I looked up my notes in my sketchbook, I could tell you how long I etched the aquatinted background for… Hang on a minute, even better, let me show you my sketchbook page:
The image bottom right shows the initial lines etched (a first test, printed with the hard resist still intact – the orange blotches are the copper sulphate ‘Edinburgh Etch‘ which has been squeezed out from the taped back). The bottom image on the left, a test print following stopping out, aquatinting and etching.
My sketchbook notes suggest that I etched the lines for 30 minutes. And then aquatinted for a total of 6 1/2 minutes. I’m reminded that I used a ‘coffee lift’ technique! This was an(other) attempt to get the aquatint to emulate my smooth pencil sketch shading [top image] – a drawing I made for Malcolm a few years ago, now in my sketchbook!
It’s just as well I take notes, I’d already forgotten that I used coffee lift!
I have yet to accomplish anything so gently graduated, soft and subtle as can be achieved with graphite… That gorgeous heavenly grail! Though this first attempt was possibly a contender for ‘best’ in all my trials! [See Hogweed I and Hogweed – work in progress]
I quite like this page in my sketchbook. I used a ‘lift the flap’ strategy, reminiscent of my most favourite childhood books! There’s a lot of good information under there, just a shame ‘lift the flap’ doesn’t work online!
