Cricketts Inky Art Blot

I have entered an art contest for Wine Hill Hotel, called "Wine is Art". The winning art piece will be used for the wine bar and it's publicity materials. The artist also gets to exhibit in the hotel for a year, which makes it an attractive proposition, so I figured that I might give it a try. I headed up to St Mary's Art Center to use their beautiful press. Prior to arrival, I had scratched a drypoint etching into a plate and prepared it for press work.  I also had a clear plate the same size to add a monotype. The next stage was to add, then run some leaves on blank paper through the press on the inky plate. The clear plate was then discarded and then the inked and now flat leaves were laid onto the drypoint plate. The drypoint was inked up using a heavy amount of brown, the leaves were almost completely black. This was done to add some visual weight to the activated edge of the print and to emphasize importance of the wine i...

Here are a few of my older etchings using drypoint, aquatint and cine colle. The etchings I am working on at the moment, will use less toxic methods than those used in the prints below. It is a good benchmark for me to compare these with the processes in the copper etchings I am using at the moment.

I have been starting off a copper plate for etching. In the past I have always used other metals and always used traditional but toxic methods. Acids and feathering have been my method for exposing the plate for a good bite. I have been happy with the results, but I have not enjoyed the headaches, sore hands and eyes etc. I am learning more about non-toxic techniques to print and will be experimenting with salts for the plate exposure. I am also going to learn about using an alternative to the powder aquatint. Over the weekend I worked on a sketch for the plate and prepared the plate for the image. The first difficulty I found was that without a rosin coat on the plate, I could not really see where I had scratched. I am allergic to pine, so it is a good thing for me to not use the rosin, however, I might need to find a ground that is dark to work into as I am disappointed that I can't see the details.