Altering the Image

Now that the quarter is coming to a close, I finally have the chance to update my blog! I've had fairly equal parts of frustration & delight in this class. I've found that when I get consistent results, and come up with an image that I like... I really don't want to mess with it. But, for our classwork... it was all about messing with it! Here are some examples~

Above is the original photographic image that I took of the church at Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico. And below, the image etched onto a copper plate & printed~

I liked this one (the first etching,) but our assignment was to add text, and in order to do that I needed to lighten the sky... which means I needed to go back in & scrape the plate to try to remove part of the etch~

Then, for the addition of text... new film is applied & re-etched/aquatinted, after a hardground is applied to the church & sky to protect the original image from etching into darkness as well. For my text, I borrowed a line from John Lennon's Imagine~

After all that work... I like the first etching the best!! This is part of the frustration of taking classes for grades. What makes me happy is not necessarily what makes my instructor happy. And while my primary goal is to learn, and come up with something I like... well, I also like my grade to reflect my efforts. And for me, that usually equals putting in much more time than most of my fellow students. So be it, then. Here's one more example of an altered plate~

Above, one of my earlier results from a previous post... and below, the plate after it has been altered to add a stormy sky and a bit more detail to the structure.

I got lucky on this one, because I actually like both the unaltered & the altered print!

:)

Coming soon... the FINAL PRINT!