Langoustine lunch

Langoustine Lunch - Etching with ink wash

The great thing about taking part in #printoctober on Twitter is that it has encouraged me to side-step my usual world of lino and explore some different techniques. 

First to make it beyond the drawing board was an etching on acetate, which is slightly foolhardy because I don't have an etching press. Undaunted I spent a happy if slightly fumy hour scoring a sheet of acetate with a soldering iron. 

Langoustine Lunch - actetate "etched" with soldering iron

Next was the inking. I though relief printing was messy but really it has nothing on inking up for intaglio printing. Having scrubbed ink into all the etches I wiped of the excess and then gave it a press. The result, as expected was not great, a nipping press simple cannot apply in enough pressure and doesn't have that roller action that intaglio really needs.

Langoustine Lunch - "etched" acetate proofed in nipping press.

I now see three ways to go with this: 

1 rub down the burrs to see whether that allows greater contact between ink in etches and the paper 

2 try pressing it through the mangle (requires cobweb extracation)

3 beg/borrow/steal time on someone else's etching press

I've added an ink wash to a few of the test prints (see top and below). Now back to the lino!

Langoustine Lunch - Etching with ink wash