Killer Flower Project Continued

This is after putting it through the first round of Salt Baths.




















First print of my plate. Unfortunately, somehwhere along the line of cleaning the hard ground off my plate and inking it up, I managed to put scratches on it. Also, the little tail in the corner was dry pointed on. I hand drew the image in the hard ground and was going to put a tail but after drawing it twice, I decided that it didn't look good.






















I was not too sure about how to erase the tail and scratchs. I thought I could just use steel wool to erase the lines so I went over the areas with steel wool. It didn't work. I think I got some new scratchs in the process too.






















I figured out how to erase the scratchs and tail. I used a burnisher to rub the lines off and then used steel wool over the burnished areas. It took a while to get the areas to the point where the lines were more or less gone.





















Here is the print after burnishing my plate. Notice that the unwanted lines are gone.

Project KillerFlower Zinc Plate

Project Kiler Flower Zinc Plate


When ever I look at this photo I envision little tentacles coming out to eat small animals. I always imagine different forms of a flower monster. Tentacles, the whole flower turning into a mouth, little mouth (like in aliens) coming out.
I took this picture near my house with the intention of documenting the plant and finding what species it is. It is a Foxglove flower.




















This is the concept sketch for the plate. I feel that something is missing. Maybe I need to put more flowers. I didn't draw every flower in the picture. I was trying to keep in simple.



















This time I am trying to use a bigger plate than I have used before. I plan on doing an aquatint on it. First I need to give it the salt baths, then I will do a proof.

ordered cupric

I just order cupric sulfate from nurnberg in portland oregon. I am so exicted to have my own little lab. Now i just need to get asphaltum and I will have things ready for a little print lab in my house. bwhahhahahahaha. I got it for pretty cheap too. I was expecting a good 80 to 100 dollars for 500 grams. It only cost my 40 dollars. It would suck if I get the bottle and it turns out to be the wrong compound.
I really need to watch my money though. It will be worth it to pay the money to have my own little lab. This way when I am done with this class i can still work on prints.
I am thinking of starting to design my own mini press. I need to start doing some design drawings and look into material.

More info on Cupric and nitrate

I talked to my teacher about getting cupric. She suggests going to nurnberg in portland to get the cupric. She also suggests using nitric sulfate for a better etch. This is something I want to try on my own, however this is a serious chemical that i need to be cautious with. I definately need to do a lot of research on how to handle it before I even experiment with it.
We talked about how to store it and what not.

I can get asphaltum from the teacher. I will bring a glass jar eitehr this week or next week to do stuff at home.

Looking for a new place to live. It will be exiciting to have my art studio in a place that is not freezing cold.

:)

zinc salt bath

So. I just learned how to do the zinc salt bath for etching.
Basicly I need salt+cupric+hot water.
I need to find a company that will send me Cupric. I plan on looking up JT baker because that was the name on the bottle.

Zinc Bath
5 quarter Hot water
equal parts (250g) cupric and salt.

I can dispose of it down the drain according to my teacher.