Etching Course

This week I was extremely lucky to attend an Etching course at The Australian Print Workshop in Melbourne.  I have been wanting to do an etching course for ages and I had dabbled a little in some dry point etching myself, but without the results I had hoped for.  Two of my friends are avid etchers and they both have taken courses here and recommended the course.  

Here are some photos from the 3 day workshop.  We covered hard and soft ground etching and had the chance to experiment with Chine-Colle and colouring techniques.

I loved it!

This is my hare print which is part of my Art Club submission for this month, which I will post and explain about in a few days time....

Etching the hare onto hard ground...

Adding detail....

I had looked through some old sketchbooks for drawing material on the course.  This particular naked lady was drawn over 6 years ago at a life drawing class...

I used soft ground on this plate originally but didn't get the dark black lines that I had hoped for onthe figure, so I later dry point etched into the copper plate...

Experimenting with Chine-colle and dry point etching....

I also had time to do another hard ground etching on the back of the naked lady copper plate, and I used this sketch which I did in Barcelona a few years ago of the Sangrada Familia...

Different colours and inking applications.  

You can also see some of the other work from the course which was on the drying rack at the same time as mine.  Being on a course like this, you get to see such a wide variety of drawing and working styles and you also learn so much from each other as you make mistakes and have successes...

The copper plate had picked up a range of scratches as it was the back of the naked lady, but this 'noise' was quite a nice effect I thought...

The work space was fantastic, and kept unbelievably clean!