Soft Ground Rose Etching

Hello there,

here is a recent printmaking project I just finished. It's a rose etching with a soft ground drawing. Soft ground is the process of adding a soft ground (resin) to a zinc plate and laying a piece of tracing paper on top of the plate, to then draw the image with graphite pencils. You can vary the line with and darkness of the image by either pressing harder or lighter with the pencils.

Here is the result of the first print I did with a black etching ink. This is printed on white BFK Reeves paper, and the size is 6x6 Inches.

1/10                 Rose Etch with soft ground                

     

These next two were printed using the chine colle technique, which is the process of coloring one plate with different colored inks. This is done by applying ink to certain areas with cards, and then wiping them away with little balls of tarlatane (a mesh muslin like fabric)

This plate was applied with cyan blue. It has moody feeling to it.

for this one I did a more traditional theme and colored the rose with a red ink.

Hope you enjoyed reading this post. Feel free to leave a comment below if you have any questions or enjoyed reading this post.

Mori Point Line Etching

Inspired by a lookout point called Mori Point in Pacifica, CA I created this image using the three plate aquatint etching process. This is a printmaking process where one plate is etched with an image and transferred onto two other plates. Or three plates. The idea is to use the traditional printmaking method of CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black) for this image I just used Magenta, Cyan, and Yellow. The idea was to make my blacks using a combination of these three colors.

The next step was using a process called aquatinting for these plates, in this process you melt rosin onto the plates, and bite the plates in acid at different stages to achieve light and dark values.

After I did this I inked each of the plates, with it's own color so that when I printed them together they lay on top of each other to get different colors.

Here is a proof of the blue plate printed:

I would then place the inked yellow plate down, and roll it through the press, then the Magenta plate. To achieve this image:

"Mori Point" Original edition 1/25

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Koi Fish- 5 Step Reduction Linocut

Hello,

Over the past few weeks i've been working on what's called a reduction linocut, otherwise known as a suicide print. This is the process of cutting away from the linoleum block in layers and printing in separate stages to get a full color print.

First I drew my image directly onto the plate with a sharpie, so I can see my image more clearly when I cut.

I then began to cut away areas of the plate, that I wanted to remain white.

imprint of image on the ink roller.

The first color layer that I rolled onto my plate was yellow. I want to work light from dark so that my darker colors
overlap the lighter ones.

I then cut away areas of the plate that I want to keep yellow, and rolled my next color orange onto the plate.

I then inked up the plate to print red.

for this one I used a blue color gradient for the background, I created this by mixing a lighter and a darker blue side by side and then rolling it onto the plate. I didn't originally plan to use a color gradient, but thought it would be a fun experiment. I think the gradient adds a lot more depth to the piece.

The final layer that I printed was black for the outlines of the piece, and the small details of the fish.


This process is also known as a suicide print, because once you cut away layers you can't make any changes. It's also not possible to make more prints when you are done. I had to print the number of prints I wanted in my edition from the beginning when I printed the first layer. First I started with 15 prints, and ended up with an edition of 10. There were a few mishaps.

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Reduction Linocut Progress

Here is some progress from a reduction linocut I am working on. Otherwise known as a suicide print. In a reduction linocut you are using the same block to print all of the colors in an image. This means you are progressively cutting away the image and printing in layers.

For example I am printing this piece in 5 colors, therefore i'm going to print this plate one color at a time going from light to dark.

First I drew the image that I wanted to print, and traced the image onto a sheet of linoleum. I wanted this piece to be more graphic, and emphasized the fluidity of the Koi fish.

Then I cut away areas on the linoleum where I wanted the white to show through. The first color I rolled onto the linoleum was yellow, because it's the lightest color.

Here is the first print. I need to print my whole edition at once since I will not be able to go back and print this color again. That's why it's called a suicide print. The next color I will print is orange, so I will need to cut away any areas of the image that I want the yellow to show through. I will progressively add more colors and print for each part I cut away.

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Day 13

I'm making a new piece of art and sharing it for 21 days. Here is day 13. I drew a butterfly and foliage using micron pen, and added a splash of color to the butterfly using brush markers.

Day 12

I am really attracted to Paisleys and wanted to make a paisley pattern of my own. They are really relaxing to draw, and you can get really creative with the details. Heres my version:

Cozy Cat

Day 11 of the 21 day art challenge.