Sunday, November 10, 2013

Etching, etching, and more etching!

Tiny hard ground etching 2





I have been trying very hard lately to improve my hard ground etching skills.  Just when I think I have got it right, I go and over bite it and it gets too dark, or I get too much foul bite. Hopefully, I will get there in the end!  For inspiration and education,  I have been looking at Rembrandt's etchings and this is a wonderful site for being able to really focus in.  What a treat it is to be able to look at his work so closely.

Tiny hard ground etching 3
I have also been working on an etchings of a pinned beetles  This is the second one, the first one wasn't so good.   I think they are taking on a rather sinister feel.  What do you think?  Please feel free to comment.. just hit the comment button at the bottom of the posting.   I get a lot of people emailing me directly, but it's always nice to be able to show your comments on the blog too.  Thank you.

Hard ground etching
Last Thursday I went to the Natural History Museum (Angela Marmont Centre) to draw for the day.  What a lovely bunch of people they are there.  It was such a wonderful day, I hope to go back again soon.


Finally, I used one of those scary exposure units in the screen printing room last week and produced this solar plate etching.  So much fun!  I used one of my dragonfly photographs, cropped it and made it grey scale and the result is below.  So much potential.. what next?!

Solar plate etching of a dragonfly's wing.

Two colour solar plate etching