Copper and Carbon
Copper and carbon the history of North Wales
Experimentation
Natural plinth
An old lump of concrete that looks like it has spent many years in the sea was found on Abergele beach. Its colours and texture make it a natural fit with this electroformed pear. Although the starting place for the research was focused on electro-etching for printmaking the use of electrolysis in making sculptural 3D objects
Electrometallurgy sculpture easier and cheaper to do at home than lost wax.
The electro forming of sculpture has a number of advantages over the lost wax process, the major one being that the sculptor can do it in a home studio. This piece is 30 cm. high. The whole process took less than twenty four hours.
Electrometallurgy sculpture easier and cheaper to do at home than lost wax. Read More »
Electro-etching steel plate
One of the things I like about etching aluminium with saline sulphate is the great depth of etch that it is possible to get. I’ve wasted an awful lot of research time trying to get the same depth of etch on aluminium with electro-etch. I’ve now found I can get the depth of etch I
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Print from electro-type plate and two more prints
I made a silicon mold from one of my old plates, coated the inner surface with conductive paint and placed it as a cathode in an electrolytic cell using copper sulphate as an electrolyte. Copper formed on the inside of the mold making an exact copy of the original plate.
Print from electro-type plate and two more prints Read More »
another day in the print studio making prints
I took four prints from each plate. The textures achieved with electro-etch respond best to being treated the same way as collagraph matrix. I’ve also been using a technique that Andrew Baldwin describes as ‘double drop’, a plate is first printed in one colour then over printed in a second colour from the same plate.
another day in the print studio making prints Read More »
Adding a new print to a growing series
The plates that these prints are made from started life as electro-etch test pieces. They are all made from electro-etched aluminium. It is a soft metal that etches deeply and in the areas of open bite provides a tooth that holds ink really well. Peter Wray, in his article on saline sulphate etching in Print Making
Adding a new print to a growing series Read More »
Spending time in the print studio
I have been spending a lot more time in the print studio recently and have had two insights: Printmaking requires a level of mindfulness that I aspire towards rather than have achieved. Life is far to short for editioning. There were others of a more personal and negative disposition about competence but…
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Etching Is The Control Of Corrosion
This zinc plate has been allowed to corrode all the way through in places. The original batteries made to produce electricity in the 1830s were made by hanging a plate of copper and one of zinc in a solution of copper sulphate. Thomas Spencer observed that copper was deposited on the copper plate (the cathode,
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