I can't quite believe it actually happened! However, when I look at my prints and plates, I know it did. It was quite the most amazing, intense, challenging, rewarding, exhausting, joyful experience. 

Together with approx 16 other creatives we spent two weeks making our fingers inky black, scratching at copper plates, dripping with acid... Yelyzaveta took a 40 hour bus journey from Kiev to be there, Emily and Selina joined us from the USA, Sonja arrived from the islands at the top of Scotland (and was also on the online drawing development year at the Royal Drawing School with me!) as well as some more local, German and Austrian artists. We had the wonderful Daniela to help and of course Rossen Daskalov teaching the course with expertise, patience and always ready with the next challenge!

This was Rossen's introduction to the course: 

"The aim of this course is to help the students to learn the technical characteristics of the etching techniques and to encourage them to explore the diverse possibilities that the process offers for artistic interpretation and imagination. Intaglio printmaking today is an open ground for creative exploration, that is still strongly connected and influenced from the European printmaking tradition developed through generations of etchers since early 15^th century. Durer, Rembrandt and Goya revealed in their visionary works that etching is far more than just a method for reproduction, and elevated it to an art form, capable of conveying the timeless emotion of the artistic spirit.  Their determination to take greater risks in the discovery of etching’s mysterious potentials, inspired the artists of the twentieth century to continue to search for broader pictorial qualities, and to establish fully its place as an independent field for individual realisation."

For the first print we experimented on aluminium... Scratching and marking the plate with Rossen's tools. And then inking - that was a whole world in itself. 

The plate was inked with an upside down mushroom looking thing (sorry I forgot to ask the official name) and thickly rich black ink, then the ink was wiped away with a "scrim" (similar to a muslin nappy, just a bit stiffer) and then finally with the back of your hand - and while doing so make sure you don't over wipe or put fingerprints on the plate!

From the free aluminium we moved onto the copper plates. These could handle much more - more layering of etchings, longer in the acid bath for the etching and so you could work on them in a variety of ways. 

From dry point to hard ground, soft ground, acqua tinta and sugar lift...

Here you can see my garden of Eden which I first drew into a hard ground. To create a hard ground we first had to give our plates a very good clean - so absolutely no grease is left on them. To do this we poured soya sauce over the plate and added a bit of chalk, then rubbed it with felt, before washing the plate under water, without EVER touching the surface of the plate with your fingers! Afterwards we could cover the copper with a resin made of bitumen, resin and bees wax in equal measure. This was then treated with candles - the tip of the flame - being held up to the plate to blacken and smooth the surface.  Drawing on this "hard ground" was a delight after the dry point, where its much more difficult to draw a line the way you want. You use a needle like tool to draw into the hard ground. 

When you have finished, the plate is etched - ie put in an acid bath which etches into the copper where you have revealed it by your drawn line. 

I worked into the hard ground etched mark with dry point afterwards, making the dark areas darker. Just using hard ground makes it more challenging to create tonal areas - basically only possible by cross-hatching. 

Afterwards I then covered the plate with an acquatint layer - made from a pine resin and not exactly healthy (the resin is a fine powder, shaken in a box, that covers the plate, which you then heat to make a melted layer over the plate). 

Once you've covered the plate with the special resin, you can paint on it using a black bitumen varnish, blocking out the lightest tones. Then the plate is etched - ie placed in an acid bath for a few seconds. 

Then you work on the slightly darker tones. You etch the plate again. And so on, until you have built up layers of etched plate, tone by tone, working from light to dark. 

Here's the result. 

Suddenly your picture becomes much more emotive. You can decide on the tonal atmosphere you wish to create, the tone brings out the light and describes the space in a way that without it, the space would just feel flat. 

I worked on my dragon too - first in hard ground then with acquatint. When I etched the hard ground it left quite a lot of foul bite (marks you didn't make), however once I'd worked on it with acquatint and burnished the plate (basically rubbing out marks by smoothing the plate with a burnishing tool), it was non the worse. 

My fairy I etched using a soft ground. This is a much more volatile surface, delicate and you can really make tone just by placing your finger on the plate covered in soft ground. Once you covered your plate with the soft ground, you can put a piece of paper on top and draw on the paper. This will already make a mark in the ground. And then, so I had really tried all the processes, Rossen showed me how to add a sugar lift, adding yet more depth to the image and making it more painterly. 

The project that occupied me longest however, was a project I had promised my husband. An illustration for his poem "Das Boot". 

This plate has had just about everything thrown at it apart from the kitchen sink! Built up by layer after layer of burnishing, etching, dry point, etching... It really was a labour of love. 

My stormy sea went through very many stages, each involving inking up the plate, wiping the ink off with a scrim and then with the ball of your hand. It was very important to always put blocker on your hand before this - to stop the worst staining, however, I still have black fingernails :-)

Here's a link to the film I made of the development of the print with the poem.The atmosphere in the studio was one of deep concentration, everybody working alongside every body else with the utmost focus. Rossen was everywhere, answering questions and helping. Giving guidance. Daniela was there when Rossen was busy, handing out paper, explaining and always with a joyful laugh. I worked in the studio every day from 8.45am till they came in and wanted to lock up at 8.15pm. As I don't know when my next opportunity for creating etchings will turn up, I wanted to make the very most of this experience. 

And finally, on the last Friday, we prepared for our "open studio" - it was amazing to see the wealth and diversity of work produced, the different subject matter, the various ways people had approached their ideas. For me, one of the most warming things about the whole experience, was working alongside so many other creatives, all with ideas - about artworks, about the artistic lifestyle, about making art. We came together to eat lunch - outdoors in the blazing sunlight surrounded by tourists milling around. I don't think anybody actually took the time to look at the sights - we all wanted to squeeze as much as possible out of the etching experience. 

And though of course we used a press for printing, as its simply impossible to apply that amount of pressure with a wooden spoon, the whole process is still very much hand made and our human touch is in evidence every step of the way. As a beginner in intaglio print making, I don't have two prints which look exactly the same - some I wiped more, some less. After wiping, I often "drew in" the highlights again with a finger tip, leaving the rest of the plate fairly dark, to add the richness and depth I was looking for. All our prints looked so alive, such a wonderful testament to human endeavor and skill!

Our plates displayed in the center of the studio for the open studio.

I certainly won't ever forget these amazing two weeks - I'm looking forward to printing in my studio now (linocut and woodcut as I don't have a press - you can see some of my work here) and painting again. I wonder if the lessons I learnt about tone and tonal rhythm will be apparent in my next piece?

A very BIG thank you to Rossen's amazing teaching, Daniela's constant support, and the Cultural Fund of the City of Salzburg for sponsoring me - without which I wouldn't have been able to go! And of course to all my wonderful colleagues in print - who made the course so very enjoyable and fun! We even managed to go and see the "Sound of Music" in the Puppet Theater - where they were celebrating its 60th anniversary. 

I really hope this is only the beginning of my intaglio printing journey!