aquatint

Spent today doing some aquatint printmaking and am beginning to get the hang of the possibilities. I decided to use one of my life drawings as the basis for a print - quite suitable as it was done in charcoal and was tonal. My first print was OK (bottom image) but not as much contrast as I wanted so I etched the shadow behind the figure more. After that I decided to etch more lines in the figure. Given more time, I might have stretched things a bit more but have decided to leave it at that and when I have time in the studio to play around with colours. I just love the process of printmaking. The possibilities are endless...
The print studio is windowless so I had no idea what the weather was doing. As I was coming home I noticed there'd been a huge downpour - it's been dry for so long so very welcome to have some rain. When I got out of the car, it was positively steaming outside. One of my cats had been inside all day, the other outside. It must have been some storm. When he finally appeared this black and white cat was mainly brown. Guess he'd been hiding in a drain somewhere. A battle ensued to get him into the shower and wash him - he was that bad. Even now his underside is beige not white. He's not best pleased with me.