Fish Flying

[anti_cyclone]

Comments

[chronographia]

It's got a really nice plate tone, though probably a bit difficult to get a full, consistent edition of them.

Yours?

[chronographia]

Dude, they let you work with copper?! Great and metallic is my envy (I have to say that working with zinc plates is slightly easier on a student's pocket book though).

Also, your beveling is marvelous. I never had the patience to make them polished and tidy as that.

Copper

[anti_cyclone]

Yeah, the teacher was loudly vocal in his condemnation of zinc. It's true that copper costs a bloody fortune. I'm going to try calling up my dad, and see if he can send me scraps of the right gauge.

The beveling is the result of my several years of jewelry-making coming back to the front of my brain. I look at metal edges, and think must be mirror-polished, or will be no good.

Re: Copper

[chronographia]

If you're going to be doing more work on this (I assume it's a stage proof? Normally the first project is to teach you a whole bunch of techniques on one plate-image, through a long series of stage proofs.), then the edges are going to get roughed up again probably. Which is why I never bothered to burnish out the snags and scratches until the very end.

[anti_cyclone]

Thanks! The plate was carefully roughed up in particular directions with a Scotch-Brite before I started scratching the actual drawing on it. I wasn't sure whether it would have any useful effect, but it worked out well. I'll have to see if it continues to look the same on subsequent prints.

[chronographia]

Scotch Brite? Ew, how? I know the last time I bought a larger plate they had a decal-type film to protect the surface, but really. Scotch Brite?

I'm looking at it and some of the tonal variations are also from the tarlatan I think. It takes a while to develop a steady hand while wiping the ink off. And then when you do, someone changes all of the tarlatan ink rags to fresh, clean ones.