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scheherazade —
The Pub
Published: 2008-05-17 04:31:47 +0000 UTC; Views: 13273; Favourites: 390; Downloads: 132
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Description
An illustration for my mouse story. Nuff said.Hard ground etching and aquatint on white BFK.
Full view please.
*A DD!!! This is too cool! Good morning to me... and thank you to you!
EDIT: Newer, bigger, nicer image! And now it's available as a print!!
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Comments: 112
Thanks. It's really nice to see people are still responding to work I made years ago. Makes me smile
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Gorgeous tones! I love the little details like the ants and their cups.
Is the different background colour just a creative inking thing? How do you keep the colours so cleanly separate?
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Thanks so much!
Yeah, it's just a "creative inking thing." I used some very small matboard chips and a whole lot of q-tips. Hey... I'm a poet!
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<3 I love this! I can never get the aqua tint down just right, but I certainly admire others that do.
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Thanks so much. Aquatint is a fickle mistress. She doesn't always do as she's supposed to.
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She never does anything I request, so I think she's biased. Oh well, I like screen printing, dry point and lino cuts better.
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I'm taking a class in screen printing later this month. Color me excited!
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I love it, and cannot do a decent drawing anymore without thinking how can I turn this into a print?
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Me too. It's becoming a problem. I can't just do a good drawing anymore.
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Ha! Thanks!
fyi: I might steal that expression
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This ones very good I don't think I've seen it before.
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Thankies. It was my final project for Intaglio I. It kicked my ass.
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This looks great! It must have been a lot of fun to do.
I feel inspired!
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Thanks! It was a lot of fun. There's nothing quite like crunk mice.
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Thanks!
When I aquatint I do about a zillion drops, starting from about 5 seconds moving up to about 20 minutes. It's time consuming, and kinda complicated, but I really like the result.
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from the looks of it its totally worth it !
what do you you for it ?
i only tried spray paint so far i hear there is another way.
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That explains the great grainy texture. I've never done it that way, but I think I'll have to try it now.
I do the traditional aquatint with rosin, which is basically powdered tree sap. You put it into a box and hit it with some compressed air then stick your plate in for a few minutes so it gets covered in the dust. Then you put it on a hot plate or hit it with a blowtorch so that the bits of sap melt into tiny little dots. It's a more time-consuming method, but you get way smoother tones with it.
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I c .. Id love to try that one day..
I asked my teacher about it he explained it to me he says we don't have it in our lab because we are not allowed since its bad for health..
nyways youre doing great with it.. id love to see more traditional aquatint from you : D
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Yeah, it's not the least hazardous method out there, but compared to lithography its like fresh filtered air.
Thanks! I should be getting back to it in January, if all goes according to plan.
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I'll be looking forward to see your work..
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You have great stuff, I really enjoyed your gallery! A DD? Well desrved! This looks so funny and it's so well done. How goes the story?
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Thanks!
Basically it's a riff on the fable of the city mouse and the country mouse, except in my version the city mouse is the good one and the country mouse is a hippy and pretty much insufferable.
Here they go out to a pub in the city and the country mouse is being antisocial and generally unpleasant.
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Well, it all seems very funny. It has so nice details like the corks for chairs. My favourite mice are those two dancing in the background.
Why is the country mouse so annoying? What happens in the end?
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The country mouse is annoying because, like so many hippies, he is incredibly superior and self-righteous. Basically the moral of the story is to do what works for you and not to judge others for living differently.
In the end, the country mouse stays in the country, and the city mouse goes back to the city, and all's well that ends well. Except for the drug-dealing slug who gets eaten by a raccoon.
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Ha! Yes there is the racoon in the other piece of this story. And let me guess, the country mouse is tripping! Poor guy. I like this work you gave it a lot of tones and lights and still the general is a very nice sepia. Yes, great etching.
A funy story and very nice ilustrations, that must be one beatiful book! How many did you made?
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Ha! You're right. He is tripping.
So far, I've made seven. The ultimate goal is to make 3 more, but I've been working on these books for so long that I need a break.
The book itself has been a learning experience for sure. I had never made a book before, so the later copies are significantly better than the earlier ones. Oh well.
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Sounds like a whole challenge. Congratulations. What do you do with them?
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I had to turn one in, and the department got to keep it, and then I traded several for prints from my classmates, one is for my parents, one for me, and two of my friends want to buy copies, so that's why I have to make the extras.
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And this, kiddies, is why Scuzaphone kicks ass.
PS...The Bill Murray poster still cracks me up.
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People have told my Dad that he looks like Bill Murray. He hates it.
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...Seriously? I don't see it.
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I'll tell him that... it'll make him happy.
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Oh, that's truly wonderful and well done. I love that colour tone.
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I agree with the DD, I love the storybook style! A mice pub...how cute!
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congratulations on the dd! beautiful atmosphere: the sepia-ness gives the viewer a sense of the cigar smoke inevitably swirling around, the coziness of the room and a relaxing sort of security. i like the whimsy too, there's really nothing quite like mice dancing under the shade of wine glasses. how exactly does this style of art work, with the etching and stuff?
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Thanks!
Etching is really complicated to explain, but I'll try: You take a plate of metal (either copper or zinc, I use copper) and to get lines, you cover the plate in a thin layer of an acid resistant ground, and then you scratch the lines through the ground with a needle. Then you dunk the plate in acid, which etches the lines into the plate. To get tone you do something even more complicated involving blowtorches, but the gist is that the acid etches the image into the plate in the form of little pits and dots. Then you take some ink and smear it all over the plate, and then gently wipe it off the surface, so that it stays in the pits. Then you run it through a press and that transfers the image from the plate to the paper.
I probably should have just sent you to wikipedia.
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hm ... i went on wikipedia to flesh out my shiny new knowledge, but i thought you described it pretty clearly. how do you get the acid, and how do you dunk it in? just normally, sans gloves and protection?
i think i should also mention that etching is one of the coolest artforms i've ever stumbled across. kudos.
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You can buy the acid at an art store, actually. The one I use (ferric chloride) is actually pretty harmless. You can dunk it several ways, but the way I do it is by attaching a little tape "leash" to the back of the place which dangles over the edge of the acid bath (or is clipped on with a clothespin) and makes it easier to pull out.
I do wear gloves. The acid won't hurt you, but it stains like a mo' fo' and in large quantities it'll make your skin itch a bit.
Yeah! <3 etching <3
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oh, i'd thought that acid would have been the stomachy, don't-throw-on-your-cat type. it's still strong enough to etch through the metal?
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Actually, it's not really acid at all (at least, ferric chloride isn't). People just call it that. Really it's just a chemical solvent of copper.
Although you probably shouldn't throw it on your cat. That'd be one wet, stinky, stained-orange, angry cat.
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perhaps throwing was hyperbole. how about, suspend cat on clothespin and methodically dunk into ferric chloride? doubtless this more civilized, royalized treatment will stroke its ego the right way.
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