I took intaglio and woodcut back in college almost 30 years
ago. Since that time I have contemplated restarting my interest in printmaking,
and now I have finally pulled the trigger.
I enrolled in a printmaking course at Portland Community College.
Signing up for a class two days a week for 11 weeks is no small commitment!
But it turns out it was barely enough time to scratch the surface (no pun
intended!) of the possibilities and complexities of this medium.
Intaglio is a process where lines are etched or scratched
onto a metal plate. Ink is applied to the plate, then wiped, leaving ink
captured within the lines. Then damp paper is placed on the plate, and is
rolled through a printing press. The ink transfers onto the paper, creating an
image.
In total, I did three different plates over the course of
the semester.The first one I did is called "The Bitter Sea" (5"x7")
Here is a picture of the inked up copper plate before the first printing:
Here is an image of the print after rolling it through the
press.
Notice the image gets reversed when transferred to the
paper!
This initial state of the print was done entirely
with drypoint (which is simply scratching the image onto the plate with a metal
object).
Here I added aquatint, which creates fields of varying
shades of grey.
Utimately I did a total of 11 states before deciding
it was finished!
I decided to utilize some of the earlier states by tinting
them with watercolor. I’m fascinated by how the mood can very so
greatly with different color schemes.
The final piece I did was a tiny 4”x6” image, based on a
jazz record album from the 50’s, called “Struttin’”.
Stay tuned...
