In the week leading up to my Balance Exhibition I didn't find time to get in on Friday after the exposure unit was fixed, so came in on Monday hoping to have a productive day and get as far with the creation of my plate as possible. First we exposed the now dried emulsion with our transparent positives, exactly as we would have with primed screens. The exposed plates were then placed in a bath and sprinkled with chemical, then gently agitated to remove the unexposed areas where our positives had been. I thought the plate at this stage had quite a beauty of it's own, the copper reflective surface masked intricately by complimenting blue.
Once dried again we then had to cover our plate in powdered Aquatint resin. I really enjoyed this part of the process, as the contraption used to powder the surface was quite wacky and amusing to operate. Next we used a flame torch to heat our plate and the resin covering it, taking care to distribute the heat as evenly as possible. As the plate reached the correct temperature to melt the resin, it began to change in colour and meld from particles into a thin sheet of smoothed resin, and it was this change we were looking out for. Overheating, or incorrectly working at any stage could destroy the plate, yet we would not know until they emerged from the acid bath later.We had to wait a little while for our plates to cool, however once we could handle them the next step was to cover the back in tape to stop the acid wearing that side and create a small tag to stick up above the surface and allow clean and easy retrieval. Once this was done they were ready for the acid bath!
Matthew suggested it was best to leave the plates for 30 minutes for the most dramatic effect, and to allow the acid enough change to definitely get to work, but we could also consider leaving it less if a lighter effect was what we wanted. After the full half and hour I returned and was upset to see only some of my print had actually etched! The tutors suggested I try to gently degrease my plate and then resubmerge it for longer, and upon trying this some of the emulsion was dislodged and my design removed in places. There was still one unexposed plate from the demonstration last week, so Jess suggested I quickly re-prepare my design on this, and I did under her supervision. She said I had carried out the process correctly, which made me feel more confident, as I definitely felt I had executed the technique more successfully and understood the process better for having a second go.
We put the plate in the bath again and had just enough time before the end of the workshop to see how it had gone. I was really disappointed to see this second attempt etched even less than my first! I think Jess may have sensed some of my frustration at this stage as it was the end of our workshop and I was absolutely no further than I started, so she offered to try exposing my plate for me as she had seen me do the entire process correctly, so that I could come in and get to work on my prints as soon as possible.
I must admit I feel like this process, although it is very involved and interesting, also generated a great deal of waste. I alone went through two copper plates, a very rare and expensive resource, and was still no closer to an actual artistic outcome than I had been to begin with. Many of the chemicals we used were also irritant and harmful, and although I am sure the uni takes absolutely every measure to ensure clean and safe disposal, I have to wonder about the necessity of proliferating such toxic material while making art in the name of raising awareness for mankind's toxic pursuit of consumption.
No comments:
Post a Comment