Monday, April 4, 2011

Etchings in Progress and a MONSTER!



I've been spending some time at the Botanical Gardens at Smith College and decided to bring a copper plate with hardground on it and do some on-the-spot drawing. This little palm caught my eye, it is called Plectrauthus Nummularia. This is just the line drawing. Hopefully next week I'll have put a decent aquatint on it.

Hardground= a resist applied to a metal plate that is then submerged in acid to etch lines. You draw through the hardground with a sharp needle, exposing certain areas of the metal to the acid. The acid eats away at the exposed metal which creates a divot, which catches ink, that can then be printed.

Aquatint= a way to get tone with etching (using a similar resist process as described above).

Printmaking is very much like witchcraft.




"An Armless Hug" - a sketch




Here is a plate of that drawing with a hardground on it. It's a little hard to see, but if you look at their hair you can see the metal glinting where I started to draw.




Last but not least, I'd like to introduce the Advice Monster.

"YO,GROW A PAIR," Advices the advice monster.




And then eats the cat to demonstrate his point.

2 comments:

Chantal said...

I'm stopping by from Jessica Gowling's bear collaboration. I liked your work there and so glad I've come to look at your website. Your etchings are great and you've given me a laugh with your monster and cat photo.

Melissa Mandel said...

Golly, Thanks a lot! I'm so glad you decided to check me out. I update every Monday (or try to) so stay tuned for more work!