Window On Your World 32

Listeners' pictures at 5pm

Humphrey Ocean

Me finishing (real, not set up) the last in a series of five 'chair'
etching plates in my studio. I am painting the chair in sugarlift, a mixture of sugar and ink and water, onto a copper plate. Maurice Payne who is going to print it will then brush black stop-out-varnish over the dried plate. When that dries he drops it in water, the sugar and ink dissolves and lifts and you are left with what you drew amazingly perfectly exposed in copper, the image shining through the black varnish like a negative. An aquatint (resin dust) is floated over the whole plate, baked on then the plate is put in a tray of acid, etching the exposed copper. The plate is cleaned of all varnish, inked up, the surface hand wiped and the ink is held in the bitten groove. Damp paper is laid on the inked plate and rolled through a mangle-type press and hey presto, there is your aquatint. Very laborious but very beautiful.