I love plants. I really love plants. If I didn’t have such a rambunctious force of destruction masquerading as a domestic cat, my little studio apartment would be exploding with greenery. The first plant I bought when moving to Chicago was a Hoya plant and in an open admission of bad parenting, I play favorites. My sister recently killed her money tree plant, and for Christmas I made her this etching: A plant that could not be killed. Edition of 11, e-mail RaeleenKao@gmail for purchase.
“Hoya”
Black and white etching
Image: 3 1/2 x 5 inches
Paper: 8 1/2 x 10 inches
Edition: 11
2016
$150
Detail
The first step is applying a hard-ground acid resist to the copper plate. The image is drawn through the acid resist, exposing the copper underneath. In order to capture all the detail, I use a pair of jeweler’s glasses on top of my day-to-day Coke-bottle lenses.
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- Glasses on glasses
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- Quarter for scale
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- Detail of pattern
The entire plate is submerged in acid, which bites into the drawn lines.
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- Pretty, pretty acid
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- Etched image on copper
Tone in etching is applied by dusting a plate with powdered rosin to create a random dot pattern, which is heat-fused to the plate and also acts as an acid resist.
Detail of rosin fused to the plate. Oooooo shiny.
Ink is applied to the plate, and transferred to pre-soaked paper under the high pressure of the etching press.
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- Inked plate
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- Wall of plants
Freshly pulled print
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