I went to a two-day etching course at Sudbourne Park Printmakers last week, curious of mind and also wondering if I could widen my technical repertoire. I learnt that I could, but the question is whether I am prepared to make the quite large investment of time and effort required to become at all competent. Overall the experience was always interesting and quite challenging, and I came away with two beautifully wrapped zinc plates. The trouble is I am not sure how I produced them or, more accurately, I’m with Eric Morecambe in remembering the ‘notes’ but not necessarily in the right order.

To keep things graphically simple I based a quick sketch on a large ‘Avebury stones’ painting of mine hanging in my study:

A zinc plate was cut to my size specifications, I painted the design on to the plate which was then, among other processes, put in an acid bath and eventually inked and pressed to produce:

The design fragmented due to a misunderstanding with the tutor when removing a layer of something from the plate, but the result was not unpleasing so we lived with it and re-inked adding yellow ochre:

The plate was then trimmed to remove the thumb-print and the clutter down the left side, and colour was added for the next prints:

 

 

We wondered if the same image might not look better this way: