Ways With Windows

I did some drawing when I was at Walcot Mortuary Chapel in bath last week, using Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens onto recycled Bockingford that I’d prepared with an old tea bag. I decided to experiment and transfer the drawing to a drypoint plate.

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Traditionally, drypoint is an intaglio printmaking technique where the drawing is scratched into copper plate using a hardened steel drypoint tool. But with the wonders of modern technology, it can be done much cheaper and easier using proprietary plastic-coated paper drypoint plates or, as I’ve done here, some cheap, foil-covered card that’s available from craft shops. I scratched the drawing straight into the surface of the card then inked it up as for an etching plate and printed onto dampened Bockingford. I thought it was a bit bland so I did another proof onto some Somerset paper that I’d used some time ago to try and take an embossed print from a bunch of crocosmia stems with their seed heads still on. The seeds stained the paper brown and I like the effect of the drypoint intaglio print overlaid on the top.