So I’ve been experimenting. It’s taken me months to actually pull a print off of my plates! This is a method I read about that was developed by Pamela Conway Caruso. The short of it is, etching a plate with what you want to print, and then going over the scrapes with watercolor pencil. You then print it onto dampened paper, and it lifts the color onto it.

I’m still working on it, trying to get the right balance of paper moisture, etching depth, and print pressure (without a press… I ended up trying a rolling pin).

But these are my first two plates. They got a bit washed out from scanning. I didn’t take the time to adjust the scanners settings. I think I need to clean up my etchings just a little bit more. Some color got wiped away before printing on the jellyfish. The hearts were on a styrene plate, and the jellyfish is on a bit of plastic used to guard the viewing window on a welders mask. My dad brought home around 24 of those plates for me to mess around with. I also intend to get an etching … gun? because my hands cramp up from etching…

This is the new method I hope to reprint most of my works in for a smaller, quicker format. I’m pretty excited to work on it some more.