Etchings?

The word etchings brings back memories of my mother.  I remember her telling me how young men would invite young women up to their apartmentd to see their etchings.  She never wnet, of course.  Am I dating myself?

 

On the last day of printmaking classes with Carroll Swayze, we learned about etchings. 

This is how she makes her beautiful art.

(You can read about the previous days here.)

 

We started by creating our drawing on tracing paper. 

It measures about 3" x 4".

 

The zinc plate was coated with asphaltum.

 

 The tracing paper was placed on top of the dry coated plated

 and we transferred the lines with a ball point pen.

 

This was then placed in an acid bath for etching.

And here is the resulting plate and some printed cards.

 

You can get some very delicate lines. 

Now it is ready for painting.  I haven't gotten to this step yet.

I'll put it on my list!

Art To Feed Your Creativity

Key West is so full of opportunities to indulge your inner artist.  So many opportunities that sometimes I find it hard to control myself. 

 I could get lost and never find the time to make my own art.

 

Last weekend, I dragged my husband to an art auction.  The auction was to benefit The Ann McGee Scholarship fund.  All of the art was created by local artists.  They receive half of the auction price and the other half is used to fund projects by other local artists. 

 

It was quite the event.  The food was beautiful and delicious. And the auctioneer, who came from NH, was so entertaining and did that mumbo jumbo talking so fast auctioneer thing.

 60 pieces were donated and sold. 

 It was a fun and very edifying evening.

 

During the same week I also took a 3 day printmaking class

 with Carroll Swayze at The Art Center in Key West. She creates beautiful handpainted etchings, mostly of tropical sea life.

 

 

We carved and printed with various bases.

 

 These are the blocks I carved.

First we used them for embossing.

 Then for printing with ink.  These are very cute notecards.

But I had my own ideas.  Fabric was not on Carol's agenda, but it was on mine.  The ink she supplied washed out of the fabric, so I used a paint that a lot of artists here in Key West use -latex house paint!

 

 My favorite subject. 

 A stylized leaf.

And another favorite subject here in the Keys.

I love how the black paint pops on the bright pink batik fabric.

 What to do with these fabric block prints?

A great funky t-shirt.