photo of Rain with old photo and clock

Detail from We Bed Down In Water book cover design option (Though not choosen)

I am leaving this morning for a three day getaway with a printmaking friend who lives out in the country. His name is Dellas Henke and he is a very experienced and gifted printmaker with a well stocked studio that he is making available to me. (I will be away from my computer and not doing the blog during this time.) I will be working on etching with copper plates. I have not done this since I was in college some 30 years ago. I am looking at this as a chance to open up a new avenue of expression in my work. I have been applying to artist residencies in the US and abroad and this next three days is sort of mini artist residency of my own design.

I have been making woodblock prints for years. I have always enjoyed the way an image changes from the design made with drawing on paper and then carved into a block of wood and printed. The woodness is very present in the resulting image. The wood and the carving tools take the image into a whole new realm. This is true for every different medium an artist works in.

When you are making images with copper plates all the different tools cut into the copper in different ways. And then there is the acid bath that brings a whole other aspect to cutting into the surface. Etching requires special equipment that is very expensive and the resulting chemical reaction of the acid and the copper creates a poison gas that must be taken away with a specially designed ventilation system. For these reasons it has taken me a long time to make my way back to etching. I look forward to being able to share the results. Stay tuned.