Teaching & Printing Intaglio

Monday, this week I taught my second week at NSCAD. It's definitely been an adventure and quite the steep learning curve. Working in an unfamiliar printshop is tricky and a bit confusing at the best of times. But teaching in an unfamiliar printshop is definitely up there with the trickiest endeavours! Except for losing most of my voice, and utter exhaustion at the end of it, I'd say, so far so good. 

As part of the technical demonstrations of the class I worked up a zinc plate and printed the first good proof of the first bite today. 

 Zinc plate, coated with hardground a waxy acid resistant coating, and the traced image with iron oxide onto the plate. 

 Plate is drawn and ready to be put in the acid bath. The Edinburgh etch consists of Ferric Acid, Citric Acid and water. When putting the plate into this solution the acid bath eats away at the lines, and etches them permanently into the plate. This plate was in the acid bath for about 30 minutes, with constant brushing over the plate to get rid of bubbles and sediment. 

 Inked zinc plate on the press. Ready for printing. 

First good proof of the first state. 

Next step is working more on the image, new layer of hardground, more drawing, more biting, and another proof. And then repeat until the image is finished.