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| Copper plate etching, 6" x 4" (image size) |
This is the first etching I have completed in 2019. I started out by looking at one of the large oil paintings I've been making, and adapting it to this different medium:
First stage of the etching: lightly sketching in the reclining figure using drypoint, then painting some spitbite aquatint in the upper part:
On this proof, I wrote the timings for the four rounds of spitbite on the right-hand edge. I make an aquatint by spraying an acrylic mixture through an airbrush, then heat drying the plate for 20 minutes.
Second stage: more spitbite, which turned out to be too much and resulted in a flat foul bite (burning out the tones to leave an area which doesn't hold enough ink).
Third stage: so I scraped the spitbite area heavily, and drew more drypoint and burin marks, to introduce different textures to the image:
Fourth stage: I step-etched the remaining white areas of the plate, then repeated the process of scraping and burnishing to produce further subtle variations of tone, to arrive at the final stage shown in the photo at the top of this post (and here):
I haven't got a title for it yet, but I'm pleased with the combination of recumbent, possibly injured figure, with a mysterious landscape behind it that is populated with strange looking machinery.
