Thursday 5 April 2012

The Land Harbour



                                          

                                                            I



















  II


         













                                                         III





                      


                               








    IV

                


Ive been etching with with aquatint an all! :)
Its a very enjoyable process which... i have... enjoyed!
Ive found that a huge variety of marks can be made when using both the hardground etching and aquatint, i also like that each colour print is ever so slightly different, which gives a unique quality to each print of the same thing. Ive also invested in a fairly cheep, half decent camera that a friend was selling, so thats why these pictures aren't quite as grainy or grimey as the usual ones :D (the ones that werent previously were from borrowed cameras)

When i leave college in july im going to miss the print facilities, but im mooving out so hey, its going to be good!! However... money is needed to survive off until i get a proper job, so im going to be cheeky and say, anyone wanna buy a print? name a price? not looking for alot... 100% of all money goes towards a starving artist! DONATE NOW AND GET A FREE PRINT!! ;)
But seriously... c'mon, please?
Also, Download Festival looks good this year (Cancer Bats, Refused, The James Cleaver Quintet and many many more bands are playing)

Not feeling charitable? dont blame you... Thanks for reading and looking with your eyes :)

8 comments:

~Babs said...

Your header is seriously gorgeous!
I know nothing about aquatint, OR etchings, but I do like these images you've posted.

Fred Spratt said...

Thank you very, very much! :) the header is a close up of one of my abstract paintings. And if you really do know nothing about etching, all you need know is that its a print process with lots of nasty chemicals and acids that if inhaled can stop your lungs from working in a split second, aquatint is a variation of the process using dust which is every bit as mean as the acid fumes. Its all a lot of fun :)
Thanks for visiting my blog and especially for taking the time to comment!! :) :)

Bridget Hunter said...

I'm also clueless about aquatint - and though it may be a lifethreatening process - i think the results you've achieved in these works are really worth a look. I like the composition.
Thankyou for visiting my place !!!

Fred Spratt said...

I enjoyed your blog very much Bridget so thank YOU and thanks again for the kind words!

With aquatint, you take your etching plate (i used a steel plate because i cant afford the decent copper or zink plates) and you put it in this big machine with this dust in it called Rosin (a resin bassed powder) with you pump about a little bit and then just as it starts to settle, you put the plate in until it has a very fine but even covering of the rosin. then you heat it so it binds to the plate and paint onto it with stop-out fluid and expose it a series of times to the acid. the longer its in the acid, the deeper it is etched, the deeper its etched the darker the printed area. the rosin i suppose acts in a similar way to a pixle in that it breaks up the pigmants to create tones. :)
Its a very rewarding process with alot of space for experimentation so there is all my knowlage on the subject passed on pretty much :) im hooked and thinking of joining a print group in my local area in the summer haha!

thanks very VERY much for coming here :)

Carol Schiff Daily Painting said...

Hi Fred,

These are very interesting compositions with lots of motion. I particularly like #1 and 3. Well done. Also love your header!

I appreciate your comments on my blog .

Fred Spratt said...

Thank you Carol :D

Anonymous said...

Beautiful work!! My favs are 1 and 4. Good luck with trying to raise some funds. I know that if you sit in public somewhere with these they would sell for you. Amazing work! The studio I am training at for Lithography is at Sunbury Shores and it's with Robert Van de Peer. Robert has come up with a 'green' studio free of cancerous materials. The only thing left he has to try and find a solution for is the Nitric acid. No fumes!! I think this is brilliant and every studio needs to get on board with that concept.

Fred Spratt said...

Thank you very much Sheri :D yes I've heard about the green etching but I suppose there's a whole load of different facillities needed (I'm sure you know how expensive these sorts of things can be) and were suffering from major government cuts so shoe string budgets are all that's available which is a shame, especially as I can't imagine all those fumes are particularly good for the environment which these days should be considered... and I might try that idea at some point haha :) cheers for taking the time to comment!!