#oilbasedink

The last print making course day and last technique. An etching using dried plants. This was quite fun and rewarding. All the details on everyone’s pieces was amazing.

The above pink version was my last (third) print so I perfected the printing, at least compared to the earlier runs. I cleaned the plate the best I have ever done, also compared to earlier dry point or carborundum pieces. I fixed after first run some places with dry point, which however turned a tad too deep so for the last piece I tried cleaning more of the ink off from those spots. I am quite happy with the print, even though the design is not that perfect and the plants could have been more interesting and/or larger pieces.

Making of:

(the prepared plate with plants, plate after ‘printing’ the plants and masking, plate dipped to acid, and clean etched plate)

When inking the plate it was quite hard to see is there enough or any ink left, but once printed, wow, all the details of the plants, there it is. This was quite fun and hey, I like plants and nature so perfect theme.

The first (black & white) and second (green) prints:

And a close up on the pink print:

So, carborundum. Above you can see my smaller print made with carborundum powder and gesso on a metal plate and printed via press using oil based printing ink.

I did not have any specific idea when I started but then it started to move towards waves. I used a bit too much sand/powder so it turned too dark and flat and I did not get lighter areas back or they vanished during inking. I should have tried the powder mixed in gesso, now I just dropped it on top of the painted gesso and it was hard to sprinkle very light layers and even if you did, the loose powder from other parts likely got where it shouldn’t.

I did not have images on the inking phase, it is a very messy phase (same as in dry point) so quite impossible to take our camera while working. Even though it was messy I managed to do all prints using just one pair of gloves. I was trying not to be too wasteful with the materials.

The bigger print:

I also used some dry point in the plates (the small lines).

I like, again, the plate more than the print itself, but this was anyway just a practice with not much thought in the design either. I could have worked on the plate more, if we had more time, but since this was practice this will suffice. (I wouldn’t have redone carborundum, but made more dry point etching to get some details back and maybe even trying to clean some of the sand off, and when printing clean the plate better).

The plates after printing: