The Eleventh Hour

Wikipedia describes The Eleventh Hour as  a colloquial expression meaning  "a time that is nearly too late."  A perfect title for my Final Print... as that's when I got it finished! I was experiencing a few setbacks late in the quarter in terms of consistency & results... but through much diligent effort & persistence, I pulled off this Final Print the day before our final portfolios were due. Turns out, it was one of my favorite prints of the quarter! I feel it retains a bit of the photographic quality that I like, but also enhances the textural elements and detail found by utilizing various printmaking techniques. (The final print is actually sharper than what appears here.)

A closer view... I had fun trying out different colored inks & papers on this plate to create slightly different feels.

This was the original image I took last summer of the window of San MIguel Chapel in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Of the many photographs I took of this church, this was one of my favorites... and made for a wonderful template for my explorations in photo etching.

:)

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!

Photo Etching the Churches of New Mexico

I have had yet another busy week! Between the Print & Ceramics studio, I've logged over 50 hours this week. Which, of course doesn't include time at home spent researching, editing photos for projects, and writing papers! But, I am determined to squeeze every ounce of learning in that I can, and while I feel I am sorely lacking balance in my life, I only have a couple more short weeks to wrap up projects! Here are the results from my latest two plates~

I was absolutely thrilled with this print! I just LOVE IT!! For some reason, I can't get the "add a caption" feature to work on Blogger today, so I will just tell you~ this is the San Francisco de Asis Church in Rancho de Taos, New Mexico. It is such a beautiful church, and Artists of all types have long been drawn to photograph & paint it... including Georgia O'Keefe, Ansel Adams... and ME! Below is the original photograph~

I spent a bit more time on this one in photoshop before printing out the transparency, dodging & burning to bring out the highlights & shadows, with the goal of achieving a more contrasted final print.

And because I can't help but show a bit of process...  as it absolutely fascinates me~

below is an example of an original copper plate (top) and one that has been painstakingly hand sanded~

Look at that copper shine! Once you've got a good transparency, and the plate is prepped, the light sensitive film is applied & you are ready to expose!

The image was exposed for about 12 minutes, then into the developing bath it goes!

In order to tell when it is developed properly, a keen eye & loupe are used to make sure the film is "opening up." It can be quite tricky! Then into the ferric chloride (acid) for etching!

I know, you are wondering... does this excitement ever end?! Not just yet!!!

After the initial etch shown above, it must be aquatinted & etched at least two more times!

Below, an example of aquatinting from last quarter~

The plate is sprayed very lightly with a water based latex & then etched again, which results in more tonal ranges. After all that, you are free to clean your plate & get ready to print! It can be an all day process from start to finish just to get one good print!! But, if you're lucky... you'll get something you like, and once you've got that plate finished... it's only about 20 minutes or so to ink, wipe & print.

Below is the resulting image from another plate that I did, but I didn't have as good of results with the development process. This lovely little church is in Golden, New Mexico.

The white smudgy areas are where the film did not "open up" during the developing process. It's a tricky process to get all the areas to open evenly, I'm tellin' ya... which is why I was so absolutely thrilled with the first print! While I love the look of etched photographs... all our final images for class must be altered, so as not to look so Photographic! LOTS to learn in 8 short weeks!!

:)