Drypoint print

Well, here is the long awaited drypoint. its 28x18cm, and is from an earlier drawing of an idle afternoon in Dorling Kindersley offices, London.  It has turned out very well, and now I'm considering doing some more. There are some very interesting subtleties to the medium, such as a the light areas top right are very heavily wiped and make a lovely delicate line, the dark areas are lightly wiped and are a lovely fudgey darkness, like velvet. The lines on the bottom right are my favourite marks- they could be put to good use in a very graphic almost art deco print. Tomorrow I will do a watercolour layer on the lighter prints of this plate, so will post that hopefully tomorrow evening. Its all very exciting.

Drawings in colour

Happy Sunday lunchtime everyone, here are my latest drawings with added zing of colour. 

In regards to my approach in drawing, and printmaking, I've decided to go back to a more relaxed way of drawing. Over the past 4 months I've tried to practice detail in small drawings, and aquatint technique with etching. Then realised that I was a bit tied down with the 'correctness' of it all, and have decided to have more fun. So these latest drawings and future prints will be more lively and possibly experimental. This can be a narrow path do walk along as I'm mindful not to let the work become too cartoon-like. 

At the moment I'm working on a drypoint of my old desk at Dorling Kindersley in 2005. I was always doing little drawings in spare moments. Now while thinking about loosening up and being more playful I took the drawing and started scratching into an old plate from college. As it's a drypoint it could go quite fuzzy and splodgey, but we'll see what happens. Either way it will be interesting. There are all sorts of things I could do for tone- like sticking fine to rough grade sandpaper on, scratching the sandpaper on the plate, making little dots or thick lines, very faint thin lines, and even underlayer of colour with lino block. It will be a totally spontaneous thing, seeing what happens. That's the most enjoyable part for me- working with the unexpected results and making a truly individual and eccentric image.