Learning Drypoint

Last Thursday was my first time doing drypoint printing. I absolutely loved it!
I was given an aluminium plate and advised to be experimental for my first attempt-scratching into the metal using different tools at different pressures, trying to really get a feel for how to do it confidently.
I chose to copy a picture of a cat for my first try.

I was a little bit uncertain about how hard to press into the metal in relation to how dark the lines would come out, so I avoided doing too much detail in the cat itself, instead scratching out more detail for the bush behind it...and a few lines of what I thought might come out as tentative 'shading' here and there.

Once I had been shown the process it was fairly easy and I really enjoyed it....spreading the ink on, rubbing it in and polishing it off felt almost therapeutic.

I was surprised by how well the prints came out. I tried using different colours for the cat and the background. My favourites were some of the two-toned ones.

I can't wait to do another design on a new plate. Hopefully I will have time to do some designs for presents/Christmas cards. In the mean time I've been adding watercolour to some of the prints I thought needed something to bring them out a bit more.

I did another with orange and red coloured leaves but managed to get paint on the cat's leg by accident, so I cut out the cat from another one of the prints and stuck it (with a layer of cardboard) over the original image.

I like how this gives the cat a little bit more definition (and a tiny bit of a 3D effect).