Patience & Print Making, Learning Lessons Through Mistakes

Since my last post I have been enjoying the Easter break! I managed to even tickle the creative bones of my housemates! On Easter Sunday, we had some good clean fun; I hard boiled some eggs and we sat out in the lovely sun decorating them with my Posca pens! It was pretty childish but we had a laugh and it proved to be more fun than everyone originally thought! We then went a walk to roll the eggs... neither of them had ever herd of this tradition which struck me as pretty strange! Here are the results and what wee all produced!

Apart from having Easter laughs I also got one of my pieces framed which was actually really exciting! The piece I got framed was the one that is going to be shown in The Assembly House Arts Show 2011, Norwich. When I went to get it framed I was given a choice of different coloured frames and mounts in which to show off the image. As I hadn't had anything professionally framed before it was hard for me to decide but in the end I chose a grey frame with an off-white mount. I think I made the right choice as the frame really does compliment the etching. I now have the piece hanging in my living room but have forced myself to keep the protective cardboard corners on it so as I don't get too used to it having pride of place on the wall as it will have to go to the exhibition in August! I think I will be sad to see it go and will also be left with a big blank space in my lounge!

A group of friends and I also took a little trip through to London where we enjoyed the atmosphere and surroundings of Camden Town in the sun during the day and in the evening we went to see Bonobo, which I have recently been introduced to, at the KoKo Club. The live band played renditions perfectly of the DJ's amazingly chilled out, dreamy tracks. The albums have become a favorite in the print studio, being enjoyed by the majority of the Print Makers at Cambridge School of Art.

I went in to college today for my first day back after the break. I had a long thin plate to etch which I had decided to fill with my pattern (92cm x 11cm). I'm trying to learn how to judge the depth of the bite in the plate but am finding it very difficult to judge. But practice makes perfect and hopefully with experience I'll be able to judge this in time.

The photos above show the bitten plate with the ground still on. This is the stage where you have to decide whether you leave the ground on and return the plate to the ferwick or remove the ground with white spirit and begin to print. If the ground is taken too early and the ferwick has not bitten the plate deeply enough the print taken from the plate will be too faint.

Here are a few photos of the plate with the ground removed and ready to ink up and print.

It always pays to be patient and don't rush at each crucial stage of Print Making, as my unsuccessful results proved to me! I was too eager and impatient and didn't blot the excess water from the paper enough, resulting in the paper ripping and me leaving the studio without managing to pull off a print of my newly etched plate! I was gutted!

So once again I have learned another important lesson from Print Making; Be patient, concentrate and don't rush. It's not all bad though as the piece isn't completely ruined and I can print it again from the same plate, just part of the constant learning curve!