Man of War

I pulled several copies of the aluminum drypoint plate I made yesterday. I used a pthalo blue etching ink (Akua) and have been trying different wiping techniques/materials.

The prints are getting better but they are still printed pretty badly--too much ink here and there and too little in other places. My best luck was with a stiff tarlatan--that's what they're used for after all-- but I'll try to find someone who can show me how to wipe and if my ink is too stiff/loose. I'm still hoping to make a go with these water-soluble inks as clean up is really easy and there are no solvents to deal with.
I wiped ink on with a piece of matboard/scraped it off and then lightly buffed the plate with a big ball of tarlatan cloth slowly wiping off the ink. Then I went in with a bit of rolled/pointed newsprint to pull out some highlights and lastly wiped lightly with the side of my hand.





The last three I printed over an initial printing of a solid color using a piece of plexiglass plate.
I rolled color onto the plexiglass plate corresponding to where the aluminum plate would go later--lifted out the jellyfish body and some of the tenticles/stingers with a Q-tip and printed that first--one dark, the second ghost was lighter. Then, inking the plate each time, I printed the etching plate on top of the already tinted paper.


The last one is a true monoprint--I painted in my usual badly chosen colors on the plexiplate; blue for sky/blue for water, purple jelly, multicolor tenticles. It's loose and kind of interesting and would have worked if I had chosen colors more carefully; the green in particular was rather ill-advised.



I'll tip in watercolor in one of the poorly printed drypoints and see what that looks like.

P.S. If you get stung by one of these--hot water works best at neutralizing the stinging cells once you peel off the sticky stinging strings as best you can. They really hurt and can scar.