A few new bits

Just as I'm about to take off for a couple days of holiday I thought the time was right to do a quick little post before leaving.  I managed to get a very good start on my new project as well as take a shot of a larger work that I'm pushing along.

The first is a shot of the raw copper plate that I'm in the process of burnishing my apothecary image onto.  It's quite a complex image in terms of shading... particularly the glass.  I decided to show you the plate instead of the first proof as often with mezzotints you can see an image clearly on the plate long before it will ever be seen well on paper.  Initially proofs are very dark and even though they look well established on the copper it's a long process of developing each shade further and further with more burnishing.  This is after the first state of burnishing....

This second image is part of a more experimental etching that I'm working on.  It's unique for me because it's quite large.... the sheet of paper here is about 18"x24"... large for me at least.  It also makes use of a lot of different techniques... aquaforte, soft ground, sugar lift, pastello, and in the end it will be tinted with aquatint... and possible a little bit of spit bite for some atmosphere.  Anyways, it is totally experimental and on the fly... no sketch before, just working straight onto the plate from my imagination.

Anyways, enjoy!

Semolina

Continuing on with my kitchen series, I present the lovely Semolina. Not complete yet, but definitely in a stage nearing completion.

I wanted to run through the basic process of getting to this point step by step.

First, I draw the image in pencil in my sketch book... just as I would with pretty much any other drawing.

Next I carefully coat my polished plate of metal, in this case zinc, with soft ground. When the ground has been successfully applied I wrap the plate with thin tissue paper and begin redrawing my drawing exactly (or as close to as I can) in reverse onto the tissue paper. This is a delicate process as the soft ground is pressure sensitive, so any mark I make with my pencil or finger or whatever is a mark on the plate/design. Making sure not to press too hard or too light  with my pencil is also a bit tricky,... too light and i don't make enough of a mark, too hard and the line gets blown out. I tend to fall into a groove as I go and adjust my pencil weight as I go along. In this case, transferring the image took a full 24 hours of work.

When all of my drawing is complete and I'm absolutely sure I've covered all areas of shading & line I get to unwrap the plate like its Xmas morning. Beneath all of my pencil work is a delicately resolved transfer in the soft ground...

From here it's into the nitric acid for about 25 minutes. When I remove the plate from the acid I usually do a quick test proof to see how the soft ground etching turned out.

It's basically a one-shot deal, but from here there are many options to start refining the image. In this case my image turned out pretty well with just the soft ground, but the nature of doing this method produces a really soft image where as I need something that is going to have a real harmony of hard lines, soft lines, and a variety of tonal values.  In this case I use the initial soft ground etching as a starting point for hard ground etching.

After applying hard ground I use fine needles to add various elements of detail as well as to firm up some of the finer lines that I need in the image. Here are the progressions through a couple layers of hard ground etching...

Finally, I fill in all of the remaining tonal values with different levels of aquatint. Aquatint is a process by which i coat the plate with resin powder and then melt it to leave a very very fine layer of resin bumps on the plate. When I put the plate in acid, acid seeps into the spaces between the bumps producing a hole for ink to rest in. With more holes in the plate I can achieve darker tones. More time in acid = deeper holes. By putting the plate in the acid for different amounts of time I can get different shades of grey. Of course I need to block out areas that can't be effected each time i put the plate back into the acid. Here is the end result...

Anyways, that's how it's done! I hope to finish this one off soon so I can press on to the next. 

Progress in the Kitchen

I just wanted to pop up a little update on some progress being made on a couple of the soft-ground etchings I'm working on... oh yah, and a little snap from the studio where I'm working out of.

Both have now been taken from sketchbook to metal etching, and are both currently unfinished works, but with a few more steps they should come together. I've used soft ground for the overall image, aquaforte for firming up the line work, aquatint to fill in subtle variants in shade, and will hopefully bring a touch of spit bite into the mix for a few select areas of atmosphere. Lots of process involved!!! That said, even before finishing these I'm already pushing on to others to keep the energy rolling along.

I find that working on lots of different projects at the same time really helps to keep old ones alive. As soon as I get sick of working on something then I can easily switch over and have something fresh to follow. Just like a fine wine, every work in progress needs time to breathe!

Soft Ground dabblings

As my etching plate sits in the acid... the edges slowly corroding away for the next couple days to get them to that perfect state of imperfection... I decided that I need another project to keep me trucking along in the in term. I had my drawing already made up and decided that I would dabble with soft ground etching. 

Basically this is a similar process to hard-ground (which I've been using) except the layer of ground is much thinner when applied and it remains tacky while on the plate.  

My teacher suggested this method to me and I took it on without really knowing quite what I was getting in to,... but that's also the fun part!

What I've had to do thus far is coat the plate, trace my drawing (outlines only - on tissue paper), and now I'm very gingerly transferring the drawing onto the plate making sure not to contact any part of the plate with pressure from my hand or foreign objects. In this step I draw directly onto the traced out image and do all the delicate pencil shading. In the end I should have a final image on the plate which will then be etched with acid.

Here's the set up... original on the left, tracing and plate on the right, mirror used to see the image in proper orientation for the shading.