Etching 1

My slight apprehension about this new process was unnecessary because I really enjoyed it, and feel pleased with the prints I produced. I made a conscious effort to note down as mush as possible about the process so that I could refer to it later and observe small details so as not to get things wrong. I must do this for other processes in future because it enabled me to work independently, and (most importantly) with confidence... where as I might usually feel anxious about doing something wrong from memory.

I did not spend much time on the composition of my first etching.. I thought I might concentrate on experiencing the process instead. I enjoyed learning how and why the different steps work in preparing and manipulating the etching plate - I always find that I am better at something if I understand the reasons behind it, and this was very well explained to us.

I consider my first print to be successful because it was very clean, and the plate seemed to have held the ink well. I think the drawing itself was a bit sparse and uninteresting, but still coherent with the rest of my work and showed a new, different quality to using pen as I had done before in the week.

 

I think, although enjoyable, etching possibly isn't a process I would use very often in my practice because I only tend to use drawing as a means to making a 3D object and it would make more sense to use pen... Nevertheless, considering the preliminary drawings of artists such as Rachel Whiteread, which are really interesting and can be viewed as artworks in their own right, perhaps occasionally I could formalise some of my sketches in this way.