"Float" On

After summer break, I decided to ease myself back into printmaking in the fall of 2008 with a basic aquatint:

Anthony and I had visited the Huntington Gardens over the summer and I used a photo of the water lilies as my source material:

Printing black ink on white paper seemed a bit harsh, so I experimented with inking in different colors and printing on different colored paper. I also printed a couple with chine colle to add a bit of color.

Multiple plate aquatint

Multi-colored linocuts can be done with a single or multiple plates, but in aquatint, there's not single plate option (unless you count a la poupee). However, the concept of printing one color at a time in perfectly aligned layers still applies. After etching a basic line drawing, that image can be transfered to a number of additional plates, which are each aquatinted for a specific color. Once the plates have been made, it still takes some playing around to find the exact color inks needed for the desired effect.

This technique is what my instructor, Anita Toney, focuses on herself. I'm also inspired by Sarah Newton's awesome aquatint and recently got to see one of her multiple plate pieces up close.

"Drive"

After my first crack at aquatint, I have to say that my spirits were lifted and I wanted to try more. Since I like doing portraits (of friends, family, and even myself!), I decided to give that a try and used a picture of my friend Jackie, taken by either her or her boyfriend:


I thought the aquatint was pretty successful, and I like the photo, so I decided to use it again in my first linocut. Sometimes it makes it easier to use an image that you've already analyzed to try a new technique:


After tweaking some things on the linocut, I tried adding color with chine colle.

Introducing Aquatint...

Technically, you have to walk before you can run and you have to etch a line before you can aquatint a plate. But I didn't immediately take to line-etching, so after practicing the technique, I quickly moved on to try aquatint, using a photo taken of my dad in Toledo in the 1970s as a source image:


After creating the plate, I also experimented with inking it with multiple colors a la poupee (below):