detailed drypoint landscape study

It has been a sad summer where I have had to take a break from the studio due to a terminal illness diagnosis that my aged mother was given in July. Unfortunately the illness took on a very aggressive acceleration soon after and I travelled a 1000 km and arrived in time to spend several days with her before her passing. I decided to stay longer to care for my surviving father until the family can resettle him in an assisted living facility in the same community as three of my siblings.

Just before I had to travel for all of this I did spend time in the studio and was able to produce around 20 drypoint prints on paper of a landscape study I had sketched earlier. 

The scene depicted is from my roamings to some locations along Lake Superior about four hours east of where I reside. This is where there is a pristine national park here in Canada on Lake Superior called Pukaskwa. The study is from a cove along the shore of the park that is dotted with inlets and small islands.

The printed image size is 10mx 13.5 cm and I used a thin acrylic plate to scribe the lines using a homemade needle (math set  compass needle tip set into a mechanical pencil holder.) Plate tone and careful removal of mix of prussian blue safewash with a little carbon black ink using tissue and cotton swab was utilized to create the dramatic sky.

In the meantime I told the director of the Hospice that took care of my mother I would donate a framed work to display in their facility in honour of her. The work is in development at present and my plans are for it to be a large drypoint combined with a monoprint background.

More recent explorations in Drypoint

 Here are a few more drypoint prints that were created over the past couple of months. I used clear acrylic plate, tetra-pak panels cut from liquid container boxes and also copper plate to make drypoint prints on paper.

spring blossom
drypoint from acrylic plate 
hand colouring added

print on paper in black etching ink

clear acrylic plate with linework created from 
drypoint needle

N.W.O. (Northwestern Ontario abbr.)

drypoint with added watercolour 

drypoint image on copper plate

print in black ink from copper plate

botanical study drypoint with hand colouring

tetra pak print with cut & peel shadow effect

print off plate using hand-mixed
etching ink (sepia & process red)

drypoint explorations

Exploring along the rocks
dry point print with hand colouring
2024
artist proof 

Luna Moth
drypoint
2025

working on copper for the first time, plate progress so far

The past couple of months I have been spending time focusing on the creation of more drypoint based prints, using both unconventional and traditional surfaces to draw into using etching needles and blades.

The print with the red fox was made from a square shape plate cut from tetra-pak packaging. It was cut from the front panel from a larger than juice box sized container that was originally used for keeping coffee in. The shiny silver interior surface is the side that is used. I realized that the thin plate could be problematic getting ink transfer during printing. A fellow printmaker suggested the plate could be attached onto a mount board. The plate was spray adhesive mounted onto an equal size piece of scrap mat board I have saved in a tote.

I made the drawing in fine line marker on the surface of the plate (by looking at the original pencil sketch I had made and repeating the image sketching freehand. I didn't put in fine detail though at this initial stage. I first wanted to get main shapes established then work in and out from these regions of the image.

 I then not only over the fine marker line with the drypoint needle but also started doing the detailing with a diamond tip needle and another I made from a this small sewing needle with an attached handle.

drawing on plate (reverse image) made visible

by wiping akua ink into the lines

progression with drypoint marking and then etching ink

was wiped into the recessed line

first proof on paper 

Luna Moth began as a sketch on paper that I then set under a thin piece of  2mm clear acrylic sheet and used as a guide for incising the surface with drypoint needles and tip of a scalpel and x-acto blade. It was printed on 250 gm white rag with Cranfield Safewash carbon black ink. 

At the present time I have been doing transfer of a fine point marker study in my coil sketchbook onto the surface of a small polished copper plate. Copper is new to me. My experience back in intaglio etching class in art college was with zinc plate. I am enjoying the process and have been using a very small scrap piece to practice and refine the drypoint markings I would like to use.

I will follow up this post again soon with photos and observations when I have printed the plate.