Printing New Etchings

Here's a photo of a beetle that appeared on my desk late yesterday afternoon. He's rather hard to see in this photo, but he is an off-white or cream color and he has brown stripes running down his back. I have seen ones like him here in Spanish Village, but I have never seen them anywhere else in all the time I've lived in San Diego. There may be a tree here in Balboa Park that attracts them. I don't know what they're called either, although it occurs to me that I just saw an insect book of mine at home. If I remember, I'll try to look it up. Anyway, it crawled under the overhang of the desk, and I don't see it today.

I spent the afternoon in the printmaking class I'm taking. I printed seven etchings, one each from different plates that I have prepapred here and one that I found in my drawer at school. I did a series of six prints several years ago for a show, but I actually never printed editions of them. I'll try to print at least some of them this semester.

I had a conversation with the instructor about the logistics of my various projects. He says we could set up a ferric chloride bath in the classroom where I could do some of the etching on my plates. I would like to do some aquatint and some soft ground etching. I could apply the rosin for aquatinting and bring the plate back here to my studio to etch it, but the soft ground would be a little harder. The soft ground is soft enough so that you can take some like fabric or leaves that have some texture to them and put them on the plate and then roll them through the press. If the plate has soft ground on it, the pattern will be transferred to the ground and that pattern will then etch onto the plate. I have plates onto which I have pressed a piece of cheesecloth. When I print the plates, the print has a soft woven background to it. Some of my new plates would benefit from the same technique.

After class, I came back here to Spanish Village to work in my studio a little bit and write in my blogs. I also returned the two framed etchings that were not accepted by the Women's Caucus For the Arts show at the San Carlos Library. I took a sneak peak at the show when I drove out to pick up my rejected pieces. It's very nice, but very small. It is contained in a meeting room they have in the back. I can see why the judge only took one piece from each person. It would be too crowded otherwise. There's a reception on Sunday, but I'm not sure I can go unless I find someone to stay in my studio for me. Well, maybe I can.