Mezzotint Workshop

Last weekend I attended a one day mezzotint workshop at UAA led by visiting Canadian artistGuy Langevin. Guy really is a master craftsman, an artist, a poet, a teacher and also a nice guy to spend a day rocking copper plates with. So here are some photos of us doing just that.

After 5 hours working on a 2.5 by 3 inch piece of copper, I had just about rocked it to a point where it would print a nice velvety black.

My handywork and tool.

This is a photo of a section of one of the prints guy shared with us. One of my favourite things about his work is the way he makes the process visible. Here you can see the lines he rocked into the plate and the variety of angles and density of the marks.

Cottongrass Etching

This is one of a series of etchings I have made of the tired old cotton grass in my back meadow this Autumn. I have etched 7 plates so far and printed 3 (in an edition of 3 only so far). This one is an entry for a print exchange organised by the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA), which is involving a number of other universities throughout the country. Each institution will select 5 students to participate in the exchange, which will involve printing an edition of 25 - so this was something everyone was advised to keep in mind. The prints selected will then go on show at the UAA student gallery and may also be shown elsewhere in Anchorage.

This is the 25 edition version of this image. My full intention with this series is again to cut out 'feathers' from screen printed tissue papers to add to the etchings. I want to give the forms a weight (that this image lacks) so that the grass appears heavy and dead. The colours are also taken from the changing tones in the meadow behind my house in Autumn.

These 'feather/leaves' were painted on using watercolours. I like the colours and the delicate texture of the paints. I may yet add to the image in some way.