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Acid Etching....

This week, I also learned about acid etching with a copper plate. I wanted to expand my knowledge on printing and learn a new skill. I found it really interesting and a lot easier than I thought, however there are a lot of steps to get to the final result - constantly de-greasing the copper plate, cleaning it, melting wax on top of it, then burning it with an open flame to make it easier to scratch on the design, then another de-grease, taping the back to protect it from the acid, creating a handle and then placing it into the acid vat. I really loved the end results and I'm happy to add this to my project.

For my design, I decided to use the evil eye design that I used for my last wood cut as I felt this would look good on an etching. I also added the words 'See No Evil' in the top corner to bring back that theme. Even though this was an experiment into a new skill I still wanted to link it in with my project. I did make a mistake when I was handling the copper plate after burning the wax as the gloves I was wearing to grab the hot plate didn't give me enough grip and I made a few finger marks in the melted wax. I could have corrected these with stop out varnish but I decided to leave them on as they were interesting marks and wanted to embrace the mistakes I had made. 

For the printing process we used thick paper especially for printing with a copper plate. I chose to use colours which linked in with the evil eye symbol which were different shades of blue. I also used pink and black. I used black with the ideas of painting over the etchings with watercolour and adding more symbols and such with a black pen. I found the printing process quite easy as it was similar to what I had done in previous years. I really liked the end results. The lines were sharp and clear due to being in the acid for over an hour, the text came out really well and the eye looked really effective. I think I'm going to do more etchings in future, possibly dry point etching which is something I've done in the past, as I think that the effect of coloured lines work really well with my designs. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this experience and enjoyed learning a new skill. I think the more I do this the more confident I will get in doing this myself. The final results are really effective and is a good starting point for a new branch in the project. I think I will use this design in another woodcut, as I really like the combination of the text and symbol. I could perhaps do a series of these, using different symbols for each part of the saying.

- more woodcuts?
- continue the etchings? (try dry point etching?)
- different symbols?










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