Solarplate intensive, etching

OK, I was not very good about documenting my solarplate intensive. So Barbara Mason and I met two more times, once to run more etching tests, and once to run some relief print tests. Here are some of the etching tests.

These are 7” long test strips. If you click on the image you will get larger images. The left was created with a sheet of mylar that had been painted with acrylic (black) mixed with matte medium for various degrees of transparency/opacity. The right is a b&w copy of a color gouache painting.



This next image was from a 5”x7” plate (exposed from a b&w copy of a color gouache painting) that was printed twice. Once with a reddish brown, and again with the plate rotated 180 deg in black (I think?).



Ignore the stripe down the middle...have I mentioned how much I hate my all-in-one-printer-scanner before? This was from a b&w copy of a pencil sketch. This is printed just once through the press—I wiped the plate as normal for an etching (with water based ink), and on top of that Barbara rolled an oil based ink on with a brayer. Since oil and water don't mix, she does not pick up the water based ink on the brayer and she can edition without having to clean up the brayer in between each print (tricky)!



Another sketch from my sketch book, only this plate got wet in the upper right corner before we exposed it. We went on to expose, wash, harden and print anyhow, just so I can see what happens. So that's what happens. A big blotch. The gray squarish areas are from my original—this was from my sketch book so those are the pages/corners you see. (The sketch is based on a Persian miniature.)



One last etching. Again, a b&w sketch from my sketch book. Made the same way as the sprouted potato above. Horizontal line from my scanner...have I mentioned...



Next up, the relief plates, tomorrow.