The Power of Creativity: Dry Point from Sketch -A-Day

Spring is just around the corner and that means so is Arts Walk. I have a bunch of clocks ready to show but I want to have a handful of prints also. I have one block that I’ve almost completed. I posted it previously but have since decided to print one more color.

Right now I am working on a dry point plate. What I’m doing is etching on a piece of plexi glass. I’m using a sharp metal tool to copy the image. It is a process that builds muscle in the hands. I will then rub ink on the plexi and into the scratched lines. The more burrs my etching created, the more ink it will hold. So I rub the ink into my lines with tarlatan, a cheese cloth like fabric but much more durable, and then I rub the ink off the plate. I can rub selectively, choosing where I want ink to stay and where I want to clean it off to make my lines really pop.

Plexi Glass secured to notebook

Sketch I'm working from

Using a sharp metal tool to scratch my image into the surface.
The more burrs my scratching creates the more ink it will hold.

Here you can see the beginning of my etching.

The drawing I came up with last night just sketching around in my notebook. It is my sketch of the day today, and is turning into my print of the week. It’s been a long time since I’ve done any dry point printing and I am looking forward to this.
Below are a few examples. These are pretty old, I hope to have vast improvement this time around.