I made some more solar etching plates for the second Printfest of 2011. One was of the Carpentaria from this drawing. I wanted to remove the pole from the centre of the drawing and in doing so I learnt a bit more about preparing drawings for solar plates. I drew the ship outlines in pencil, leaving out the pole, and then drew in ink. In trying to rub out the pencil, I found that ink rubs off drafting film with a rubber too! So I had to miss out the pencil step and hope that the ship without pole would work ok. Then I drew the tones in a large pencil.
With the ship b
eing such a bright vibrant vermilion, I just had to try inking up the plate in a bright red, and then rolled over with a blue-green gradient. For my second print I inked up in sepia and rolled over with a gradient that placed the red on top of the ship and sea, and the blue-green on the sky.
This plate turned out a little differently to what was expected because it has this ghostly, old-fashioned look. The actual ship Carpentaria is so red and chunky and in the moment, that this view of her seems strange to me.
There is more information about solar plate etching on the glossary page.
These artworks are lovely. Such a unique representation of Carpentaria and I agree there is a real ghostly look to them. Also love the initial sketches you did, so different to your final solar plate etchings.
Thanks for sharing!
- Carli
Australian National Maritime Museum