5th, 6th 7th January 2016 - ADDITIONS AND DELETIONS AND PROOFING

Good to be back in the studio after the Christmas break!

Printed several proofs from my small Park Hill III stone using NAM ink and a small glazed roller, experimented with different papers including some samples of velin cube BFK Rives 280gsm paper in grey, tan and cream - i particularly liked the grey and tan papers which gave a nice background hue. Then I discovered some similar Somerset Velvet 300gsm paper in a similar grey colour that LPW stocked so took a few prints from that.


Here is the stone 

Heres the print on BFK Rives grey paper

I will experiment with some of these prints at a later date adding colour in the form of monoprints or chine colle.


Returned to my large stone that I had been working on before christmas. The stone was regummed and the drawing washed out. The stone was rolled up with a thin layer of NAM but it was necessary to work on the watery tusche areas quite a bit with the nap roller in order to bring them up.
French chalk was added and then areas of the stone selectively etched. The watery areas in the foreground being quite fragile didnt need any more etching so were just treated with fresh gum arabic solution.
The very dark areas (that were too dark) were treated with Atzol solution (30% nitric acid : 70% Gum Arabic), the rest of the stone was treated with a solution of Atzol diluted by 50%.
The stone was left to rest overnight.

I wanted to add some fine detailed black lines by scratching into the stone with a fine etching needle and then rubbing ink into the grooves. This was done in the following way:

1. Gum and dry stone
2. Fine lines scratched in with an etching needle - (any mistakes made carefully covered over with gum). I added detail in this way to the tiles on some of the walls, railings and areas of wire mesh.
3. NAM ink was mixed with a little turps to create a thick slurry and the ink painted into the grooves. Excess was blotted off with newsprint and the area heated to encorage the ink to penetrate the grooves.
4. French chalk was dusted on to the stone
5. Gum arabic (or water) was dabbed gently into the inked areas which picked up the surplus ink leaving the grooves impregnated with ink.
6. A couple of the lines were not well defined so they were re-scored and ink rubbed in as before.
7. Once the lines were satisfactory, French chalk was dusted on the stone and a thin layer of NAM ink rolled over the stone.
6. The stone was gummed and left to rest overnight 


Here is some of the detail that I added by scratching in

The next day I added some white lines by using the same method as above (except omitting to add ink into the grooves!)
I also felt that some of the areas of shading were a little dark (especially those created by the rubbing block) so I softened them by abrading them gently with pumice and scratching back some of the areas gently with a sharp scalpel blade. The edges of the stone were cleaned up using really strong acid.

Certain areas of the stone needed a further etches as the image had been drawn with lots of different materials and the different areas need different amounts of etching. The watery tusche areas didnt require further treatment so they were protected with the fresh gum arabic solution. The very dark areas on the left were a bit too dark so they were treated with a strongly acidic GA solution, the rest of the stone was covered with plain gum.

Here is the finished stone which I will register and proof next week: