Etching.

I haven't done much in the way of print making since I was at uni on my foundation course but I do vaguely remember the smell of the melted ground and the acid bath. I remember liking the whole process of it but for the life of me couldn't have told you what that process was - until tuesday there. You might remember a few months back Lisa Hooper came and decorated a jar of mine with some sgraffito curlews, it was beautifully done. Lisa is a print maker and I was saying how much I would like to do some more and she invited me over to her studio for a day. So eventually this week I went, she's over in the Machars to the west of the region, on the coast in the pretty seaside village of Port William. That's my finished plate above.

So I got my little square of zinc (I think it was zinc) and I had a couple of sketchbooks with me but hadn't really thought about what to put on the etching so I opted for some of my favourite pots, both things that are mine and things that are in my virtual collection and here they are in the acid bath being etched.

The inked up plate waiting to be cleaned off.

And a couple of prints off the plate. I'm itching to do some more, I loved it. What a change from how I usually work. There is a print studio down in Dumfries that you can join and use and I think I am going to have to do that now as I want to try printing some more off this plate but I want to make some more too. Greedy I know but it's a lovely way to work and I usually draw or work in 2D so very rarely that this is a great change.

I was telling someone about it today and they asked what I'd drawn on the plate - yes Steven it's you I'm talking about, he said he hadn't realised that I really really liked pots until I told him what I had drawn. He knew I liked pots but not that I really really liked pots. Bless him. Welcome to the potters' world.