Headspace.....: More Etching !

I didn’t really think I’d get into Etching but since doing the last workshop I’m really keen on it. I was both surprised and happy with the results I achieved last time and that was without actually thinking much about what I wanted to do with the Etching plate ! After having a tutorial with Arthur I decided to produce another, but larger Etching plate. He explained how you could get some nice effects by removing hard ground with turps. I decided to prepare a plate with some ground and then experiment removing it at home. This wasn’t such a good idea as the turps I bought was not odour free and I think I nearly died ha-ha ! However I did get the plate done and from what it looked like once I had finished I was pretty happy with it. I used a piece of cloth I had in my box of textiley stuff at home to apply some turps onto the plate and then used different objects to remove parts of the ground, for example; plastic bags, hessian, cloth, scrunched up newspaper. I was unsure on exactly how this was supposed to work at first but I picked it up and I noticed how different textures could be created by using this method. So once I had removed parts of the ground I wanted I went back into the print workshops and went through the process of putting the plate in the acid / stopping areas out several times. I have took a few photo’s of what the plate turned out like after it had been in the acid and had cleaned the remaining ground off. Obviously you cannot really tell how it will print but there’s just something about the plate itself that I really like when Etching.

I knowwww you can see me taking a picture of the plate – however I couldn’t do it in any other way ha-ha. It’s the only way I could get a picture of the whole plate. Some close ups are pictured below to try and show the textures etc. I wanted to get that rusty effect that I’ve been going on about and using found objects to remove the ground from the plate was the perfect way to get these types of different and random patterns / shapes.