My Creative Process
All of my Prints are multiple-plate aquatint-etchings. They are Intaglio work. They are mostly three-plate etchings although there are a few that have four plates. The three plates are inked in the primary colors yellow, red, and blue. They are printed from the lightest plate to the darkest. The plates are inked individually sometimes in more than one shade of the plate color and printed consecutively while the ink is still wet onto a damp sheet of Printmaking paper. The colors blend as the Print is printed thus creating the colors you see in the Print.
I start out each of my Prints with photographs that I have taken myself. I carry cameras with me when I travel seeking out interesting subject matter. Closer to home I sometimes choose a location and then drive around until I find something that interests me. I take many more photos then I use for Prints and I pick and choose among them. Because I make about three Prints a year I am very careful as to what I choose. Some of the Prints that I decide to create I have thought about for a long time.
The next thing that I do is make the drawing which I will transfer to the first plate which is the blue plate and becomes the key plate. I work on a very sturdy tracing vellum which has two virtues. One, I can erase easily on it which is very important because once I have etched the plate it is almost impossible to change the lines so I have to be sure of what I want. The second virtue is that reversing the drawing before putting it on the plate is easier because it is visible from both sides of the vellum.
Once the drawing is complete the edges of the copper plate are filed to a bevel and then the plate is heated and a soft-ground coating is rolled onto it. It is then placed on my drafting table. The drawing is reversed and taped on the table matching the perimeters of the drawing to the plate. The plate must be handled very carefully at this time as the coating is very sensitive. I use a 9H pencil which is very hard and I go over the lines in the drawing. As I do this the pressure of the pencil through the vellum breaks the coating and will allow the acid to etch the lines. The line that is made by a soft-ground coating is not a hard line, but rather like a pencil line. I prefer it to the other choices that are available. When the drawing transfer has been completed, I then etch the plate. The acid I use is called a Dutch Mordant and is made of water, hydrochloric acid , and potassium chlorate crystals. It has to be heated between 80-90 degrees F to be effective.
Once the plate is etched, I ink it and make a Print of the lines. I watercolor the areas of the plate where I have to make decisions about color usually the borders. I also want to get an idea of what the Print will look like.
The next thing that I do is prepare the yellow plate by fileing the edges. I then re-ink the blue plate. I make a Print of the blue plate and then keep the paper on which it is printed stuck under of the roller of the press. I then remove the blue plate and place the blank plate which is to become the yellow plate in the same location. A template on the bed of the press indicates where to place the plate. The plate is pulled back through the press and the wet blue lines on the paper offset onto the plate. The yellow plate is now ready for the process of aquatint which holds all of the color in my prints. Aquatint is ground-up rosin. It is the rosin that comes from trees and it is ground with a mortar and pestle. I use a hand-aquatint as I like the variations in texture it provides. The aquatint is placed in a few pieces of sheeting and bound into a ball. It is beaten with the pestle over the plate until the plate is covered with a white powder. When the plate is covered sufficiently it is then melted from underneath with a torch. This adheres the aquatint to the plate and forms a dot-pattern for the acid to etch between. The longer the plate is in the acid, the deeper the etch, the more ink it will hold.
I have color test plates for all combinations of plates and etches and colors. So on a Print of just the lines I make a plan for how I would like to etch the yellow plate. I put down the etching times and write some directions on it. Then I mark out everything that is not going to be etched. That is the first work I do on the yellow plate. I paint with very tiny paintbrushes wearing jewelers magnifying glasses so errors are at a minimum. I first paint out with acid-resistant varnish everything that is not going to be etched. Then I etch the plate for the first time. When it is done etching I take it out of the acid, rinse the acid off of it and dry it with a hairdryer. Then I paint out everything that is supposed to be etched that length of time. Then the plate goes back into the acid for another etch. Then it gets painted for that etch. And on and on from a light etch which is a light color to a black . When the plate is completely etched I then make a Print of it. Then I do the red plate transferring the lines and etching it in the same way.
Finally I return to the blue plate after completion of the yellow and red plates. First I heat the plate and roll another soft-ground coating on the plate. Then I place the plate on my drafting table and put a blank piece of tracing vellum over it. I then go over different areas of the plate especially the border and other areas that need emphasis. I shade those areas and darken them when needed. I do this at this time because it helps with registering the plates when I print. The little bit of ink that transfers in the creation of the yellow and red plates can resist the acid etch and so this helps the images line up better. When the shading is done I etch the plate and make a Print of the yellow aquatint, the red aquatint and the blue lines. I can tell how some of the Print is going to look from this printing and can adjust my etching accordingly. Then I aquatint the blue line plate and etch it.
When all three plates are printed together for the first time it is definitely a moment of truth. Sometimes the final product is like the first idea and sometimes quite different. I may have to re-etch parts of some of the plates or remove color by scraping, burnishing or steel-wooling the plate. I may have to adjust the images by use of different inks or pressures on the press. But when I feel a Print is complete, I then take the plates to someone who does steel-facing on them. The steel adheres to the copper through a electronic process and helps the plates to hold up longer. Then the plates are ready for printing and when the Prints have dried then they are ready to be distributed to my galleries.
So as you can see, Printmaking as I do it is a very involved and complex expression of art and technical expertise . I find it very exciting despite the fact that it takes so long to complete an image. The effects and textures of the process are like no other.
