wax bloom

Last weekend Erika and I took a trip to Arrowmont in Gatlinburg. Although it was a bit of a drive from Nashville, I highly recommend it. The rooms were nice and the food was really great. We took a weekend class to learn printmaking, specifically: Printmaking: Color Intaglio & Etching.

We arrived Friday afternoon, explored the campus a little, spent some time in the library flipping through many arts & crafts magazines [that I now need to find for more inspiration]. After eating dinner we were off to class, until midnight. We learned the basics that night by watching demos and began preparation for our very first printmaking adventure.

Intaglio printmaking basically means that the image is below the surface of the 'plate'. There are several different techniques to accomplish this.
We focused on Etching, Drypoint, and Aquatint. The ink is then applied into the crevices below the surface of the plate and run through a press with paper to make the printed image.

I had a hard time choosing my images to use for this project because it is hard for me to get into the printmaking mode of thinking, not to mention I hadn't a clue as to what I was doing. :) We were supposed to do a four color process with four different plates. Of course, I did not do this. I had to make things more difficult for myself. Anyways, I ended up using 2 different images and used 2 plates for each image.

Erika and I ordered our supplies together so we had a huge sheet of copper plate that was 18x24 inches. This had to be cut down into 8 pieces (4 for each of us). This was done in the metal shop on campus and we ended up with 6x9 inch pieces. At first I thought these would be too small but after realizing the intensity of the work involved, I almost wished they were even smaller.

pictures!! (click for larger images)

here are some shots of the work tables, one press, and some of the work people created:


Below are photos showing the process for my plates:

1. ground (darkbrown) is applied to the 2 (key)plates. the ground creates a surface to draw into, exposing the copper below, which is then placed into an acid bath and the copper is eaten away by the acid. 2. using a white chalked piece of paper, i transferred the images onto the ground covered copper.


after the chalk tracing, i began to carve into the ground to expose the copper.


here are the plates after carving into the ground and then the chalk removed. cool!


1. now they are resting in a dark bath of chemicals! generally, the longer you leave the plate in the bath, the darker the line. i left my plates in the bath for about 50 minutes.
after the etching is done, the plates are rinsed w/ water and degreased before applying the ink.


1. here are the keyplates after etching and before inking
2. in the photo, ink is the darkness within the grooves in the plate. ink is applied to the entire plate and then carefully wiped off in 2 stages: with tarlatan and then scraps of paper. the goal is to get the ink into the crevices and grooves but not on the surface.


here are my first prints! enlarge the image to see what they look like and where i need improvements. i was going for a thick dark outline around the figure but this didn't happen. because the valley is so wide in the groove, the ink didn't stay in the center of the wide line. this is called an "open bite".


to correct the "open bite", i used drypoint technique to create more texture within that area so that the ink would stick better next time. you can see the difference in the photo below...on the right is the original line and on the left is the drypoint texture i created with a needle.



on to the second plate! the image on the 2nd plate was transferred to the plate after my first proof. the ink from paper of the 1st print was run through the press onto the second plate. this provides a guide to follow.
i used some simple outlines for the figure and stippling effect within the water area. this is mainly because i felt i was running out of time. i had wanted to do aquatint but i didn't know if i had enough time to play with it. so i used drypoint on the 2nd plates.


after the drypoint is done and after degreasing the plate with an alcohol & water mixture, i added the ink to the plate. here you can see the process of removing the ink. oh i didn't use the paper towel to remove the ink; that's just for my messiness.


i do not have any photos of the 'finished' print. i will have to add them later! :)

erika sitting across from me, searching for images to use for her print. [see the video below]


here is a short video of 2 parts of erika's process. the first part is where she is transferring an image to her ground covered plate by running it through the press. a graphite drawing on tracing paper is applied to the plate and then run through the press. (much cleaner than my chalky method!)
the second part of the video is her final plate being run through the press and then pulled. there were 3 other plates she ran through the press on the same piece of paper before this. enjoy!

Labels: etching, printmaking