printmaking

I have been taking some Printmaking classes in school these last couple of semesters and I've really loved them. I am definitely not an expert or the best (I see some pretty amazing stuff on a daily basis) but I am proud of myself for the things I have done! Especially because it's so different than the basic drawing/painting classes that we are required to take.

These first few are from my Intaglio printmaking class this semester. This print was etched on a copper plate in a process called Magic Black.

 Magic Black is when you put the plate in acid until it print's up a solid black and then use a burnishing tool to "erase away" what you want to be white. Easier said than done but such a fun process.

 I began with just the print of the vase & flowers and then decided to add the polka dots with a pencil eraser. It needed a little fun, don't you think?

 Color variations

Mixing colors is probably the most fun/most frustrating part of printmaking. These were a few mixes I made and experimented with.

The prints below are from earlier this semester. We had to do 22 tiny prints in the theme "My Precious".. so obviously I did sleep. We all traded prints and I was able to add 22 unique prints to my collection free of charge.

 These prints were so little (2x3") and so I wanted to make a little mini replica of our bedroom. I had fun adding little details like tiny iPhones, a tiny puppy, and well.. we all know tiny things are cute.

This is my strawberry print from last semester in my Basic Printmaking class.

This was a double plate print where we layered two plates on top of one another. It gave me a lot of grief in the alignment area and also in the etching of the textured background. But despite all the flaws, it is one of my favorites because I really just had to embrace the mistakes and experiment a lot with colors.

Well, there you have it! I am working on my final project right now which I foolishly decided to do on a 12x15" copper plate. a.k.a. a huge pain and 20 times more work! I will definitely be posting photos of that when it's finished. hope you enjoyed a little bit.