The final plate has 88g of deposited copper. It will require levelling off on the underside with fibre glass filler or a low temperature metal such as pewter. Three possibilities for inking up stand out, either viscosity printing, Andrew Baldwin’s double drop technique, or as a collagraph ‘a la poupee’ .
Over the last twelve hours a total of 37g has been deposited on the mandrel. The pure copper has a magical colour and to my eye it is an object of beauty in itself.
I have used the stereotype process in the past to copy etching plates, this is the first time I have used it to make a plate with the intention of printing from it. This is the back of the plate that will need to be packed to prevent the soft copper from collapsing when it passes through the press. The plan is to continue the plating process for twelve to twenty-four hours.
The Cill Rialaig Project was set up by publisher Noelle Campbell-Sharpe, as an artist retreat on the Bolus Head peninsula in County Kerry, Ireland. The images in this slideshow reflect the time I spent at Cill Rialaig with fellow artists from Lecheile an Irish-Welsh collaborative project – Communication through printmaking.
I’m really not sure where this is going but it feels like an idea worth exploring. Making work whilst I was doing my M.A. was something that had to be done. There was an external pressure. My intention is to set my self the task of doing a weekly blog to reproduce the institutional pressure of presenting work for tutorials. I love making work, drawing and printmaking are a passion but it’s so easy to slip into the frame of mind that because I’m thinking about it I’m doing it. The project is based on reading and work I was doing in my sketch during our family holiday in France.
