Christmas 2018: Drypoint Etched Baubles

Posted on 31st August 2018 by perfectly4med

I’m afraid it’s still the season for Christmas preparations in The Studio. I’ve been playing with drypoint etching to create some limited edition Christmas cards. Each design is limited to 8 prints (at which point my drypoint plates disintegrated – I’m not using perspex or metal btw). The illustrations are hand drawn and then transferred to my etching plate. Ink is caught in the grooves and wiped off the rest of the plate – each inking and print takes around 10 mins. Sorry the photo isn’t all that, and the cream colour of the print paper is less obvious in real life. You’re welcome to order these at £3 each (not including P&P).

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Card Craft: Celtic Birthday Drypoint

Posted on 17th March 2018 by perfectly4med

Just before I cleared the decks in preparation for the arrival of a laser cutter that I have been impatiently waiting for (for two and a half years!), I cranked out a few more drypoint prints for cards more suitable for those not into the floral elements on my previous ones.

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Psst… want to see my etchings? Drypoint on a budget

Posted on 15th March 2018 by perfectly4med

I’ve been experimenting with drypoint printing technique – I had to search out my college notes to review the technique I first learnt there. I’m developing drypoint on a budget, so no special press or acrylic plates. Drypoint for the uninitiated is where a design is etched into a suitable material (typically perspex) before filling the resulting grooves with ink, wiping off the excess and then printing onto paper. Further prints can be taken by reinking the plate and repeating the printing process until the burrs from the etching flatten and the ink no longer stays in the grooves.

Here are four individual prints of my first go, printed on different papers. Technically, I don’t think drypoint prints are normally coloured after printing but I have used a light touch with some coloured pencils to augment the final card.

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Altered Art: Etched Brush Pots

Posted on 3rd January 2018 by perfectly4med

Happy New Year! I have a new year intention (I don’t do resolutions, too much pressure) to have a studio clear out and tidy up. As a first step, I decided to replace my water pots for use in classes. Inexpensive Ikea smoked glasses caught my eye – stable and weighty, perfect! Of course, I couldn’t just leave them unadorned…

A little work on some typography, vinyl cutting on my Silhouette and a generous dollop of Armor Etch and my etched brush pots are complete. One features a caution symbol and ‘contains paint’, specifically targeted at one of my studio guests who can mistake her glass of water for the painty water pot. Another has the steps required for cleaning a brush. The third has all the words I could find in the thesaurus connected with cleaning a brush. And the fourth has phrases playing around with the whole brush pot concept, such as ‘clean brush, cloudy water’ and ‘colours in suspense’.

Bearing this in mind, tidying the studio is going to take forever if at each point I have an idea I then implement, making a mess in the process…