In pure etching, a metal (usually copper, zinc or steel) plate is scratched with a pointed etching needle where one wants a line to appear in the finished piece. The needle tears up the metal and leaves what is known as a burr- a ridge of metal on either side of the furrow. It is this burr which gives the quality to dry-point etchings when they are printed. Working with the dry-point technique means hard-labour on your hands, pushing the needle in the metal leaves blisters and bruises notably on your fingers and hand-palm. Today dry-needle etching is disappearing, replaced by the effortless- but toxic- use of the wax/acid etching method.
Metal plate
Title: Shark-feeding
Technique: Dry Point Needle Etching
Size: 40 cm x 30 cm
Detail first press
On the detail you can clearly see the result of metal debris on the first press. Every line is "scraped" out of the plate leaving a little stack of metal at the end of each line which transforms into an ink dot. This "first dot" indicates not only the first press (the little stack is flattened under the press and won't appear on the second) but also the direction from which the artist worked the metal; in this case from top-to bottom.
No comments:
Post a Comment