Time to...

Get this show on the road!

To be honest, I feel that I never really did kick off to a great start with this blogging buisness! Lack of scanning or taking photos or even just the general fear of writting may have held me back! Haha! Anyway this is going to change! Seeing as most of my efforts go into my uni work I guess the best place to start would be by putting some of the past projects up. So..lets begin with..me?

The first etching I made was a little self portrait ^__^. This piece was produced by dipping a zinc metal plate into an acid bath for different lengths of time. After sketching my drawing onto the covered plate, I exposed certain areas that needed to be darker and allowed the acid to erode into the metal. I also used a method called Sugar lift. This can be seen on the cookie. It involves randomly dipping liquid onto the plate and leaving it for a while and again putting it into the acid. Each sugar lift is unique as this process cannot be controlled. It reminds me of marballeing!!! I really enjoyed the process of etching and the week worth of studio time really relaxed me. We also had a chance to try another work shop where we used the process of mezzotint and dry point etching.

Dry point is basically scratching into the metal yourself and depending how hard you press depends on how dark your lines will become. Due to the outcome and possibility of multiple prints I was going to produce a Christmas card of a white rabbit. I started of by printing onto white paper and began to experiment with different colours of papers and inks to try and get a wintery feel.

The last technique I learnt was mezzotint. This is where you use a special device which looks a bit like a pencil with a bit of sand paper attached to the tip. It is similar to dry point and does not require acid either. Out of the 3 techniques I feel this was my favourite. Apart from carrying around the instruments and a piece of metal this type of art work can be taken anywhere :)!

In conclusion I like the fine line asethetic and also the large textured covering obtained by etching which would not work from using a pencil or pen alone.

Point to Note: When printing text goes backwards!!!

Don't learn the hard way!