Silk Aquatint workshop

A few weeks ago my chum Sue started some posts on her blog about the silk aquatint  process she was teaching her weekly printmaking group. It looked wonderful, especially as it seemed to produce striking tonal differences. My voice was one amongst many that wanted a workshop and quite by chance Sue re-arranged a date in her busy calendar and offered one this past weekend. I needed no second bidding to get my name down and all my expectations about the scope of this technique were fulfilled. Now, I never go to a workshop with a desire to bring home a masterpiece. I need to concentrate on watching, absorbing, understanding and practicing the process from start to finish and after the workshop I love the next step of thinking how I can use it or push it a bit.So, I made my first two plates just as tonal exercises just to see how many layers I needed on each plate to wipe white and this first plate will inform all the subsequent ones so well.

After reading Sue's continuing blog posts I thought I could work out the process so I  made a couple of sample plates which did not print well and this tonal plate above suddenly taught me why they had failed. Even if I'd made no other plates, this one alone would have been worth going to the workshop for.... but friend or not, Sue has a plan for her workshops and she makes sure you get the most from them so resting on your laurels is a no-no. We were encouraged to try lots of mediums to create tones but my favourite one is the rich velvety one achieved by leaving the silk uncoated. A close up view of my photos show how juicy and wet those prints still are. I think they'll need a few weeks to dry off completely!

 Here's the plate alongside the resulting print. It was drizzled with glues and paints and has some inking issues but, alongside the three small ones below, will inform where I go next with this process.

 Some workshops can be an awkward mix but there were five of us and we just gelled so well, making it a great environment to learn in. Some of us were experienced and one was a beginner to printmaking but we all had a fabulous time. The others kindly said I could show their images here :

 Sally - inspired by the Chinese Lanterns in the garden at Hampen

 Corinna adding chine colle to one of her plates

 Sally No 2 using viscosity inking to highlight her imagery

 And finally, Liz, who produced for me, the print of the weekend. By accident Liz stuck some card to her plate the wrong side up. Instead of a shiny, wipe free surface she had the rougher texture uppermost so needed to salvage it with glues. Her initial print was lovely but when she tried viscosity inking over it, it was even better. Look at that beautiful plate. For me, a work of art in it's own right. When this is dry and framed it will be stunning... and all from a mistake! That's the serendipity of printmaking for you. No wonder I love it so.