Still not particularly happy with the final result and there was a LOT of faffing around on this. First attempt at the aquatint, I got the spray too fine and the coverage too good so it didn't etch at all - file away under "possible hard ground?". The second attempt was pretty good - short, sharp bursts from about 12" away worked well. I didn't really want it that black, all the line work in the figure got lost so I dry pointed it in afterward. 20sec, 40sec, 1min, 2min in E.E. so darkest tone was only 4 mins in total. Fast stuff. Hard to tell if it's stripped all the way to the fibreglass though....
So what have I learned?
- Etch the line longer - 4 mins?
- short sharp bursts from airbrust with undiluted acrylic ink
- Commercially produced liquid hard ground goes on too thick, cracks and chips and is generally quite shitty. AVOID. Having said that, it is what I used here.
- Dry point adds interesting variation to the line depths
- 4 mins in Edinburgh etch is enough for a good black.
Thinking I might try etching on aluminium cans...gonna get me some Copper Sulphate for that little experiment.
