Studio closure

Over the past few days I got all my plates ready for re-etching, just to find out that the print studio has closed its doors again for the next three weeks as a result of renewed Covid-19 restrictions (alas, we're in the third wave, but my vaccination appointment is on the horizon!). As frustrating as this is, there is nothing I can do, and on second thought it might not be such a bad thing to digest the initial disappointment that the plates didn't turn out as I had hoped in the first place. I will change gears for now and focus my attention on the text component of this project again. Hopefully I can make good progress with this part and I won't need to leave it all till the end. 

(Image: Early proofs that need some more work.)

Etching Plates

Etching Plate being pulled out of Ferric Chloride bath. 

For the past two weeks I've been crazy busy etching my plates and stopping out the aquatint areas. Overall the plates look good and I was super excited to start proofing earlier this week. Unfortunately I'm disappointed with the etch on most of my plates. The aquatint isn't fine enough and many of the etches aren't dark enough, i.e. they look too speckled and coarse for my liking; they just don't have the richness I want. I tried to darken some areas with a roulette, but that was very labour intensive and didn't improve the look very much, so, with heavy heart I have decided to re-etch some of my plates that need it. This feels like quite a setback at the moment, since it will add another week or two to my timeline for this project. I had a bit of a disappointed cry yesterday after all the work I put in, but now that the decision is made, I know it's the right thing to do and I'll be happier with the results in the end. I feel this shouldn't have happened, since I'm good at what I do, but I threw one variable into the process and used a new product for the aquatints that's easier to use than my airbrush and that was a mistake. Oh well, lesson learned.