An experiment in burnishing

I’ve always wanted to have a go at mezzotinting; I love the soft, velvety quality which can be quite ethereal at times. I don’t fancy rocking my own plates though and my burnishing skills need improving so, for practice, I’ve aquatinted a plate and bitten it all over. This gave me a grey surface to start with and allowed me to burnish the image up.

A recent life drawing gave me a fairly simple form to start off with as I didn’t want to do anything too detailed (hence the headless torso!). It’s quite hard to see what you’re doing actually; I don’t know whether it’s easier on a mezzotint but it’s a bit trial and error on my aquatinted plate.

I don’t think I left the plate in the etch long enough though – I’d like to try again and bite it darker next time so I can get a better range of tone. I shall continue to tinker with this plate, maybe bite it again. That’s the great thing about etching, you can keep reworking the plate. Etching rocks.

The wonders of pine resin

Here’s my first experiment using pine resin as an aquatint. It’s too dark at the moment but I was quite pleased with it for a first attempt. I ground the powder from quite large lumps using a somewhat crude mortar and pestle, if you can call it that. Can’t remember what beach the stone came from but it was most probably Welsh.

The texture of the aquatinted area is uneven and rather crazed in places which may be because I’ve not put enough resin on or because the powder isn’t fine enough. This is something I’ll be able to experiment with to get different textures and tones. I’m not a huge fan of even tone in my own work; I quite like a bit of chaotic texture and foul biting going on, so I think this rather basic method of grinding my own powder and dusting it on using an old pair of tights is going to suit me rather well.

Now, where’s my burnisher…