Back to Printing

 I really wanted to go back to printing, as I'd really enjoyed the process when I experimented at home and during the last workshop, so I decided to work from this drawing I'd made of my sectionalised painting, as I thought it could come out quite nicely as a monoprint maybe.

After speaking to Des though, I started to work on a dry-point etching of the drawing, but as a whole drawing instead of section by section.

I used a sharp nail to scratch into the plastic, using a cross-hatching style as I had with the drawing.

When I'm finished scratching in the image I'll rub ink into the scratches and grooves and make a print.

I think I'll try cutting it up also into different sections, so I can play around with it like a jigsaw.

I'm really enjoying making a drawing in this way, as it's so different from just using a pen/pencil- and because I'm making these permanent indentations it allows me to feel more relaxed about making mistakes etc. I'm trying my best to use the nail just as I would a pencil.

To print the drawing I rubbed black ink into the grooves and scratches and wiped of excess on the top. I then rolled it through the printing press on slightly damp paper.

These were the finished prints: 

The first print was quite dark, and as there was still ink left on the plate I decided to run it through the press a second time. I preferred this version as the mark-making came out much clearer: