Making A Mess

Last night I went to the drugstore to buy . . . drugs. Nothing exotic, just over-the-counter ones. And I wound up with this gardenia plant. You can see the flower near the middle. It's a pretty plant and I know it will do well in the shade outside my door. It was getting a little late afternoon sun, but mostly it will be in the shade.

I guess an artist should diversify to stay in business, like a drugstore. Certainly I'm moving away from jewelry right now anyway. I'm really getting a great deal of pleasure out of creating etched metal. Today I put two pieces of brass in with some copper to see how the brass would etch. It worked well. Now that gives me another option. I'm curious to see whether I can use it to make printed etchings. Certainly I can make it into jewelry. And it could be medallions for keychains as well perhaps.

I wasn't nearly as intimidated by the ferric chloride as I was last time. I got another bottle last night. Too bad I can't get that at the drugstore, too, but I had to go elsewhere. Anyway, I added it to the amount that I had in the glass pan already. It is now deep enough to submerge my plates. But when I poked around in it to fish out the plates, I wound up splashing it on my shirt. I'll bet it won't come out. And I painted the back of the plates with the liquid asphaltum which then made a big mess when I used mineral spirits to clean it off. But now I'm prepared for that too; I went to the auto parts store and bought some hand cleaner, the kind that has grit in it.

Eventually I'll have everything I need. I guess I don't know what I do need until I try the process, any process. Well, I suppose I could think back on what we had available when we took the class in college. I am doing that. There are a great many steps involved in creating etchings. I really enjoy making them. And I am realizing what I really enjoy is working with the metal itself. The printing process isn't as interesting to me. For that reason, I can see that I might prefer to just etch and use the metal to make jewelry.

However, speaking of printing, my order of ink and other supplies arrived today by UPS. I ordered everything from Graphic Chemicals, the supplier I'm familiar with from school. They sent me a catalog, and I see there are lots of other things I could order like water-based ink for relief printing, paper, plates for less than what I pay locally, other tools. I didn't have a chance to look at everything. One step at a time. There's just so much to do and only so much time in each day.