My first etching
How I accidentally created an absolute nightmare
First off, I am well, and I need to tell you I am fine because you’re probably wondering why, when I said I was going to spend the year learning about etchings, there have been no etchings. In truth there is an etching, but I created, entirely by accident due to a chain of poorly thought out ideas, a quite disturbing image.
It’s not this one, the one with a little skeleton in an apple tree thats you might have seen on instagram. I don’t think skeletons are that disturbing, and feel that my experimental skeleton tree collograph is fine. There are only 5 skeleton trees and I wont be making anymore, because it was a lot harder than I expected, but it was a good experiment and I learnt a lot. I have not shown my accidentally disturbing in a public place in case people form conclusions that are wrong, because I didn’t not intend for it to look this way.
For my etching experiment, I decided to dismember an aluminium beer can. Beer cans have some kind of coating on the inside and you can scratch directly into this and then etch it, which seemed like it would be fun, but the coating is slippery and I couldn’t draw as well as I wanted. I chose to draw a hand, because there’s always one close by to look at, but soon lost interest because it wasn’t as neat as I wanted, so I started making random marks to road test the etching technique. I used to sand paper to abrade a blank area, which just happened to be the wrist (mistake one). Then decided to see what writing would look like. Because my to do list said ‘etch something, anything’ I literally wrote that phrase (another mistake) Then I wrote ‘empty’ using a variety of different marks, because it was a hand. Empty handed you see? It was not a reflection on my mental state, I was just punning, I swear.
Anyway, I completed the etching and totally oblivious to the terrible thing I had created, I had a sudden, inspired thought. I would try out my new red akua ink! Yes, I printed this abomination in RED, my final mistake. It’s the sort of think I’m pretty sure teenage me would’ve been doing, but on purpose. I can only hang my head in shame. Here it is. I am sorry.
Except, I am still quite proud because it IS actually an etching, and it etched and printed quite well? I’m going to sand off the inner coating an use a proper acid resist next time and draw something A LOT less weird, and I’m quite looking forward to experimenting.
Other news (and I mean BIRD NEWS).
The apple tree in the garden has become the haunt of both the local buzzard and the kestrel. Its in a terrible position for photos because as you can see, its quite brightly backlit so here’s a silhouette of a kestrel.
The buzzard was sitting there a long time and i didn’t try and take a photo because .. fog. Then finally I relented, sought out a zoom lens and took.. this.
I don’t know how they know but even you are in your house and they can’t see you, birds fly away if they psychically sense a zoom lens (unless they are brightly backlit, I guess). I managed to disappear a quite sizeable flock of lapwings I was VERY excited about by popping in for my camera this week too. I did find a nest on the floor and that can’t get away so its mine now.
If you are reading online, don’t forget to subscribe, because I am still posting a bit erratically (almost every two weeks now) and you don’t want to miss this exciting melange of escaping bird legs and severed arm etchings. If you enjoy my post, why not share it to your friends and force them to subscribe, because the more subscribers I have, the more regularly I post. Just don’t share this to my psychiatrist, not with that picture. I am fine. Having a good February, in fact. Take care.