Etching I

La boca fea.
This was my first attempt at an etching. To test the waters, I wanted to do a varied amount of line widths, seeing how close I could get them without mashing them up, and seeing how detailed I could get everything together. I stippled a bit (with good results) and did a few different areas of tight lines. The image itself was default, because I didn't really care about what I was etching as much as how much I was etching it. This was more an experiment, so:

What I liked
I was pleased with how much detail I got from the needle in the asphaltum. Some of the stippling I did was so minute I thought it wouldn't appear, but to my surprise everything showed up as I had drawn in on the plate.

What I didn't Like
I was displeased with my wiping skills. I had a poor cleaning style, I thought, because my prints kept turning out a bit grey, and sometimes blotchy. This actually worked out a few times, and coupled with seeing what Garret did to his prints with ink experimentation, it led to my last print being strengthened by its blotches. That isn't to say it was a great rpint, or that it was necessarily strongest. What ended up dissapointing me in the end was just my lack of control. In an extreme case, like my last print, I had better luck because the idea of a properly wiped plate was lost within the overdone inking. I didn't have to worry about clean edges or uniform clarity, because the outcome was meant to be a mess. I wont always want to be printing purposefully messy prints, so I need to focus on tuning my skills so that my range of work can broaden.

I fucked up the drypoint, but that will be amended when I learn the proper printing process for drypoint.

The frame I did was pretty bland. I wanted to put a frame or two around and within the piece (mainly because of some beautiful Max Klinger prints I saw that incorporated interesting, interactive frames), but the outside one just seemed kinda bland. That isn't so much a big deal in comparison to some other aspects I didn't like, especially because I can easily amend it, but I was still a little disapointed. I would have changed it up a bit in this print but I lost interest in it when I got into a few different processes.

Ultimately, this piece wasn't a stunner, or a flop, or a beauty. It wasn't supposed to be though. It was a good experiment, and a modest first step.