Sunday 19 May 2013

Photo Etching part two.

As I said before I was going to go back to do more photo etching and the second time round take more pictures. Although now I realise I could have still probably taken more pictures... I think this will be it for now!

First of all the plate needs to be filed and degreased. This is not as exciting so skipping that part :P Once it's ready you take it to the Dark Room, which is filled with yellow light.


Next you stick a layer of your photec - the funny blue film that looks incredibly green here - onto your plate.


Then it goes through the minipress as it has to stick down well!


Then you pop bubbles, make sure it's all good, run it through press again and cut off the excess.


Next you put positive on your plate and expose it. No pictures of exposure unit I'm afraid!


After that it goes in a special bath that develops photec and all the unexposed bits come off. A bit like when you are preparing screen for screenprinting! This is probably the reason why I love this process so much :)


You then proceed and show it to Laura who makes a funny face.


Then it's the Acid Time! I have lots of black surfaces so mine goes in for a few minutes and if it's ok I then proceed to aquatint it. And then it goes back into acid, and when it returns....


...The remaining photec and aquatint have to be removed, so it goes in yet another bath. That's the last one though! Then we're ready to print.


Inked up plate!


And the first proof!


By no means this is finished though. I want the Moon to be a bit lighter than the rest of the image, so I tried to brasso out the face of the moon - results above, you can see my face in the Moon's face! :) I will keep going at it though, hopefully in 2 weeks time you will see the proper finished print though! (prints need to sit in a drying area for like a week...)

This is it for now. So here, have a picture of Katt Monsen:

6 comments:

  1. WOw, it was very interesting to read and see all this!

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  2. erm, well, okay, I guess I'll first need to look into screen-printing. I have no idea of what I've just read and what result I was supposed to expect :D. Or what the result actually was :DD

    But very cool nevertheless! (And I'm off to hide under the table now in my ignorance :D)

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    1. Errrrr I guess I haven't written it in a very explanatory way. It all makes sense to me though ;)
      Basically where the photec is covering the plate, the acid will not bite into and these surfaces will remain white(ish).
      Hah, ask away if you want me to explain anything :P Me or uncle Google ;) (that's what I always do when I come across difficult words :P)

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  3. The technique looks interesting, hope I get chance to try it one day. (Monsen looks really cute and intelligent!)

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    1. I love this technique so much... I guess becuase it's a bit more controlled than freehand etching. Although I am not using it to it's full capacity as you can print photos with it too and get lots of grayscale. Anyway, I guess I am more of a planner than a spontaneous person! (or artist).

      (I think the gift of wisdom/intelligence has not yet fully developed in Katt Monsen unfortunately. He's not mine, he's my friend's cat I am currently looking after while she's having fun in warmer countries - it seems Norway is currently much warmer than Scotand :[)

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