I'm very excited about the plate I have just etched using white ground. The plate is 30x40cm so a reasonable size, I popped an aquatint on two this size couple of days ago. They were slightly cheaper as I bought them from Great Art but I thought I'd give it a go on these before investing in a slightly more expensive plate from Intaglio.
I was aiming for something resembling tree bark and I wanted areas that were left white as well as a few well etched darks so I tried to get lots of variation in the thickness of the soap ground from nothing to really thick.
I had to mix up a whole litre of mordant to etch it which seemed like a huge amount! I swooshed it about a little every now and then as Paul showed me at CSM and the soap ground gradually began to look like sand under water, it got smoother and smoother on the top.
The resulting plate is amazing! I had really, really high hope it would print as well as it's etched! It's got lots of very fine horizontal lines which when I looked closely seem to be part of the surface of the plate. I rather like them, there's a hint of woodcut about it.
It certainly has hint of tree bark about it. I'm wondering whether I could print it in very pale pink and then print it in sepia over the top but with the plate turned upside down so the flow of the lines is the same way. I really want to get some of the colours I've been finding into my tree for the final show.
(The following day)
I grabbed an hour before our lecture and got two pulls of the plate to see what it looks like. I'm so pleased!
I waned lots of white and some deep blacks so this had worked perfectly. I think I'd like to tint the paper with tea or coffee (according to my experiment tea seems more staining), print this in a pale, grubby pink then turn the plate 180 degrees and print it in this sepia.
I have a second plate to etch and based upon these results I'm going to try to aim for more of the grey so more areas with thin layers of the soap ground. I don't think I could have etched the plate for much longer but I could get more grey with more thin areas. I'm hoping to be able to layer the plates for some prints. in slightly different colours and I need to experiment with more papers as well. I unpacked my lithino experiments from my drying block and there are some lovely marks on some of those prints as well as some plainer areas which I think could make good backgrounds.
I'm very much hoping to create a lots of unique prints which I can utilise and respond to individually and then combine them all to make something really interesting and representative of the forest.