I shot some decent pictures of my artwork today, finally!

Here’s a much better picture of my (still untitled) two color etching. I’m pretty satisfied with the handcoloring, but I keep wondering what it could have turned into if I had aquatinted it. If I have a moment next semester, I might just try it.

This is my last etching from class. I really enjoy the appearance of burnishing down an aquatint. It just takes so much time. I practically burnished down the entire original image. I wasn’t terribly satisfied with it until it got to this point. I think I’m getting there.

I love these two. As a pair, they’re my favorite piece that I’ve created this semester. I even went to all the trouble of reprinting the edition (didn’t have much luck last time for a number of reasons), so now they look more rich and black and definitely more consistent. I think it helped printing these separately. I’m still debating on how to hang these – separately or in one mat/frame.

Anyway, I cleaned the basement a bit today. In the amount of time between Thanksgiving and now, all of the potted plants that used to be outside have migrated indoors. There are a lot of them, but who doesn’t like plants? A lot of moving of pool supplies and all that. I’m pretty excited for this summer when I’ll be able to screenprint for a couple of hours and then go outside and jump in the pool. Very happy about that. Getting ready to bring down the rest of my printing stuff, but here it is:

The exposing area.

The printing area.

I bought a new shower head today and a nozzle for the hose outside. Not much stress on the wallet. I’m going to try that for now and if it doesn’t work, I’ll go for something with a little more muscle. I still have to drill the hinge clamps into the table and make a little light proof box for coated screens. Nothing terribly complicated there. I figure I could get some cinder blocks, some scrap wood from next door and some black tarps and fashion something that would keep the light out reasonably well. Just how light sensitive is the emulsion anyway? There’s a decent amount of sunlight that comes through the windows and it makes me a little worried about coating screens anywhere other than the bathroom. It wouldn’t be too much of a problem to coat them in the bathroom, except when summer comes around and people actually start using it again. And storing them in an area that gets some traffic doesn’t sound like a good idea either. I’ll figure it out, just thinking out-loud right now.