Problem?

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These are just a fraction of my sketchbooks. I think I may have a problem!

Precision

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Working with Andrew Baldwin at Trefeglwys Print Studio last weekend, I got in some practice doing a double drop print from my aquatint plate. It’s a very specific and precise process. After carefully printing in Vermilion and taping the print to the press bed before peeling it back, we put a heavy weight onto the etching plate to hold it exactly in place and then put a couple of Perspex squares tightly against the plate, along 2 edges, and again placed very heavy weights on them. Then the plate could be very carefully removed, cleaned and inked up in Prussian Blue.

The First Colour

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After inking up my little zinc aquatint plate with a Vermilion oil-based etching ink, I worked with etching expert, Andrew Baldwin, to print the first colour of a two-colour double-drop print. Working with utmost care, I taped the long edge nearest the roller before peeling the damp paper back from the plate. It’s imperative that nothing moves, not even by a millimetre.

Vermilion!

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I started making this aquatint plate back last September the first time I spend a weekend at Trefeglwys Print Studio, but it was the third plate I made that weekend and I didn’t finish it. So during my recent, second, visit to Trefeglwys, I prioritised finishing and proofing it. Here it is being inked up in Vermilion, the first colour in a double drop print process….

Making A Start

 

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I’ve got a few ideas to develop and I’m at the starting point, doing some research. I want to do something with figures in very classical, strong poses so I’m flicking through my art history books to analyse how artists in the past have done it. Here are some scribbles of a classical Egyptian statue. It’s a deceptively simple stance that was very hard to draw but it’s giving me an inkling of how to proceed.

The Difference

 

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Preparing an etching plate or a wood block or a silk screen is just the first stage of creativity in making an original print. The second creative input comes with the actual printing – the inks, papers and special effects you use. I printed the one above using the ‘double drop’ technique, printing the plate first in Vermilion and secondly in Prussian Blue. Although it’s quite monochromatic, it has a richer, more intense colour than the print below, which was just printed once, in black ink.

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Drawing Black

 

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Drawing black is hard. So is drawing animals, well for me anyway. I’m pretty good at drawing cats now as I’ve had decades of practice and they tend to keep still. I haven’t quite got dogs though. Husb and I are puppy-sitting for a week, a little black Pomerpoo (Pomeranian Poodle cross). She has huge bat-like ears, big eyes and jet black silky fur, apart for a tiny smudge of white on her chin. I had a go this evening on my Samsung Galaxy Note 8 tablet using a free Markers app. I put in a dark grey ground to start with, then worked in light and dark on top with a variety of different digital brushes. Most of what’s black actually looks grey, silver or white when you analyse it. I drew from a photo, she’s far too excitable to pose for me.

Metal Marbling

 

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I’ve done marbling onto paper before but this is marbling onto an etching plate. I spent the weekend at a masterclass in etching at Andrew Baldwin’s Trefeglwys Print Studio in Powys. We covered quite a few processes and I’ve wanted to see this one for a while. Andrew marbles a metal plate with his B.I.G. (Baldwin’s Ink Ground) and bakes it to harden it up and then etches it. The results are gorgeous. Here he’s just poured some of the B.I.G., thinned out with lavender oil, onto a solution of vinegar and water and is dragging a stick through it to enhance the marbled effect, just before dipping a prepared aluminium plate onto it.

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I’ve spent the weekend at Trefeglwys Print Workshop exploring etching with Andrew Baldwin. One of the things I learnt was how to print a ‘double drop’ plate, where the plate is printed twice on the same piece of paper in different, complementary, colours. It’s not easy, you have to be very precise, but it’s worth it. Check out some of Andrew’s instructional videos on different forms of etching here…

 

On the left, inking up the etching plate with Vermilion ink. On the right, overprinting the orange print with Prussian Blue.

Proofing

I’m spending the weekend at the fabulous Trefeglwys Print Studio doing some etchings with master printmaker, Andrew Baldwin. I have been working on an aquatint today, on a zinc plate.

Here’s the first proof. It’s too dark so I tried thinning the ink with extender but it didn’t lighten it enough so I spent the last hour or so scraping areas of the plate to reduce the intensity of the aquatint. Tomorrow I’ll do another proof print to see if it works.