Saturday, October 29, 2011

etching project.

This is our third etching project. This one we used soft ground. Soft ground is really, really, really sensitive - meaning if you accidently touch it or something brushes against it, the ground will lift off and get etched. So you can accidently etch your fingerprints, for example. I have a lot of background textures on this print that I didn't really want (like paper towel), but it looks cool anyway. I also used hard ground on this plate too (the smaller, thin-lined drawings around the edges of the print).

Soft ground is super fun tho. You can etch virtually anything. I started my plate by pressing shrimps (didn't really work) and dried fish into the ground. Kinda gross but fun at the same time. The fish textures came out really well, I was pleasantly surprised. The big shrimp was drawn onto the soft ground with a charcoal pencil. I love that you can get gestural line, and a wide variety of line with the soft ground.

etching (soft and hard ground)

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