Etchings from October 2023

Tuesday 24th October 2023

This month I started to learn etching, and techniques such as hard and soft ground and aquatint.

First trial - using a stencil. Blood drop, copper plate etching, hard ground.

Second trial - without a stencil. Blood drop, copper plate etching, hard ground.

First hard ground etchings using images of cows blood droplets under a microscope, low magnification (x100). Circular image on a rectangular plate, but printed on a larger sheet of paper. In future it might be better to have a circular plate or a piece of paper smaller than the plate. I used a newsprint stencil to avoid a grey plate tone in the left hand print. For the right hand print, I did not use a stencil.

Blood drop, copper plate etching, soft ground.

Soft ground etching using tissue paper to remove soft ground from the plate.

Seaweed, copper plate etching, hard ground.

Seaweed, copper plate etching, hard ground with resin aquatint.

Above left is hardground etching, before aquatint. Above right is the same plate with resin aquatint etched in two stages, with the hardground lines stopped out.

Seaweed, copper plate etching, hard ground with resin aquatint in green.

Seaweed, copper plate etching, hard ground with resin aquatint, in green and yellow litho ink rolled over the plate.

The same plate in green, and green with litho ink rolled over the surface of the plate.