Skill Swap: Copper Sulphate

Our collaborating began with skill swapping sessions between the two of us to widen our knowledge of Printmaking techniques.

Our first skill swap was from Hannah to Emma in Etching with Copper Sulphate:

Hannah clearly taught the method of the safer etching process and how to apply the various grounds

Covering Soft and Hard Resist using Graphic Chemical Water Based Block Printing Ink.



Here we have experimented with different tools including crayon, needles, pens to compare results. Using this as a hard ground was easier to see what you where drawing onto however as a soft ground it gave good faint lines.


Using Hard Resist with Lascaux. here we scrapped into the resist with a needle. The copper sulphate bit these lines well however the hard resist made it difficult to see where to draw into.


Here we used The Bluecoats answer to aquatint spraying acrylic resist with the use of an airbrush and compressor. Drawing on top of the aquatint with various materials including crayons, lard, Lascaux hard ground. Testing the copper sulphate to see how long to leave the plate etching for the tone we wanted. this plate was etched for around 10minutes.