New Print: Listening

This new print combines etching and linoleum block printing! I haven't had much opportunity to really explore etching since, well, undergrad, and I missed it. Aquatint, grounds, stop out, spit bite, scraping...there is just nothing like working a plate. It's like working (developing) a drawing, but the history and palimpsest is in the metal, it has a palpable presence in three dimensions (albeit, a low-relief sort of presence).

But I can run my hand across the surface and feel the drawing. It has dimensionality. When printed, that dimensionality is transferred, so the ink manifests the corporeality of the drawing.



I love contrasting processes - the flat planes of relief printing on top of the more atmospheric aquatint. Layering these contrasts, to me, is the most exciting. It is where the image becomes the most exhilarating and tenebrous.



God, I've missed etching.

This print is actually on paper made from the first test batch of pulp I made in my beater! It was just some cotton linter I beat to test Dulcinea out, found it sitting in drawer over the winter and thought it was the perfect size for this plate. Which is another thing I love to do, use something that I've been saving because I didn't have a use for it yet.

In other news - I've been updating the website. Check out here for my new prints section. More to come!