Etching Goals

Here's a photo I took last week of the classroom where the printmaking class meets. That's our professor in the back. The classroom contains four presses, three that can be used for etchings and the other is a letter press. It's the old-fashioned kind that was used to print books and newspapers, in the days when the type was set by hand. We use it now in combination with our linoleum cuts usually although it could be combined with etching as well.

What I want to do as one of my printmaking projects is to combine some of my poems with some of my etchings. The plan is to create the etching first and print it on paper. Then Philip will put the paper in his printer and print text on it. He has an oversized printer that will print up to 13 inches by 19 inches. The ink used to print the text is fade-resistent for 30 years. That seems pretty good.

Anyway, today was printmaking class. I told my professor that I intended to print one edition per week. An edition is a printing of the same etching plate over and over using the same color ink and the same type of paper. So this afternoon I printed the first of the editions that I have planned. I managed to print 11 copies of the same plate. I think one didn't come out very well, but the others should be okay. Then we talked about some of the etchings that I printed proofs of last week, and he agreed with my ideas for modifying them slightly. So I will do some of that beginning on Thursday. He likes the idea of my goal to print an edition every week, that it will keep me on track and make taking the class worth my while. And I won't allow myself to become distracted the way I did when I took the class before.