New Dreams Gather, viscosity etching

This original print is a very deeply etched zinc plate, bathed in acid for roughly 8-12 hours for some parts of the plate.  Printing is done in one pass through the press.  

This is one of a series with which the drawing was made with grease pencil directly on the zinc from a live model. The plate was etched to fix the drawing first, then additional areas of the plate were etched and aquatinted to develop the design.

Three colors are applied. The first is inked and wiped in the usual intaglio manner.  The second color is very oily and is applied with a hard roller, and it sticks on the highest surface of the plate.  The final color, a dry or tacky ink, is applied with a very soft roller that sinks deep into the plate.  The dry yellow ink skips over the oilier colors, and sticks to the plate only where there is not already an oily film of ink present. The technique is called viscosity printing because the outcome of the placement of the ink on the plate depends on the relative oiliness (or viscosity) of the 3 inks.

New Dreams Gather

Viscosity Etching
14″ x 11″ image size
©1984, Julianne B. Ricksecker

Edition size: 25
Hand-printed by the artist  on German Etching



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