I have been working like mad to complete
the six new groyne paintings which I will
be uploading over the next week or so.
On top of that I have just opened a
Gallery/print studio in what was up until
recently a clothes shop on the ground
floor of the building where I live. It has
a concrete floor so at last I have been
able to rescue my etching press!
Anyway here is the blurb:

Ryepress has now opened in the
centre of Hastings old town.
Situated in the well known Retro shop
in Hastings High street this new
print studio and gallery joins a growing
collection of galleries in what is fast
becoming East Sussex’s newest
centre for the arts.

With the eponymous Rye press
now installed, the studio will soon
be featuring periodic etching
demonstrations, with a unique opportunity
to see the process in action and buy
Colin Bailey's limited edition prints of
Hastings, Rye and the East Sussex
coast straight from the press.

Colin will be holding printing
demonstrations in the etching studio
throughout the summer.
Please watch this space for details.

The Ryepress Gallery and etching
studio will be officially opening on
21st June and from then on will be
open THU - MON from 12.00 - 6.00



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A formula for achieving an set number of evenly spaced tones:

I used to have a spreadsheet which I am currently trying to resurrect which worked out the exact timings for an adjustable number of tones. I will make it available eventually! (I am presently trying to convert it from my old Psion 3a to Excel.... aaargh!!)

In the meantime here is the timing I generally use. In principal it adopts the same mathematical progression as camera shutter speeds or f stops.


SOFT GROUND stages

1 Initial sketch with simple tones
SOFT GROUND, Dutch Mordant on Copper
30 minutes and remove ground

2 Secondary drawing with shadows and more detailed mid tones :
SOFT GROUND, Dutch Mordant on Copper
1 hour and remove ground
Apply coating of hard ground, smoke and do not remove between bites.

HARD GROUND Stages

Dutch Mordant on Copper working from darkest black downwards:

1 First Bite Black - 2 Hr (Total 4 Hr)
2 Then: Darker shadows - 1 hr (Total 2 Hr)
3 Shadows - 30 min (Total 1 Hr)
4 Mid - 15 min (Total 30 min)
5 Light - 8 min (Total 15 min)
6 Light 4 min (Total 8 min)
7 Lightest 4 min (Total 4 min)
8 White

Giving a total of 8 tones including White with a total of 4 Hours biting time
Each tone is double/half the time of the next
Hatching can be "interlaced" to create intermediate tones

Whilst the initial bite and lightest bites may seem extremely separated, remember that as you complete each successive tone, more and more of the plate is exposed, effectively accelerating the action of the acid.

I always think of acid as working like a group of hungry kids being let loose on an empty sweet shop; swarming around the brightest and stickiest sweets available and devouring them ravenously until too full to move!

I really like the way this follows through the four canvases, with each panel having its own composition and yet building to a whole.

When I first joined an etching class at Working Mens College in Camden way back when it seemed pretty obvious that was not something you'd do at home; draws full of bizarre medieval devices, bottles of evil smelling liquid and walls covered with yellowing uncompleted prints. All this dominated by a huge press that felt as if it had been there long before anyone had thought of putting a building around it.

The class was in the basement down a long dark corridor and entering it felt at times like being the member of a secret sect of alchemists. I was one of the few people to take my plate home with me; carefully wrapped up in tissue. I would turn up the next week, having done all the drawing and spend most of the class stopping out the scuffs and marks that invariably had sneaked in during its transportation. Eventually I managed to smuggle home a small bottle of acid and before long was using the valuable 2 hours a week of the class solely for the precious business of printing.

I ended up teaching the class and have always tried to find modern alternatives that retain the spirit of traditional methods but can be done in the average home. Here are the technoques I now employ, with a few ideas you might not see anywhere else.

Firstly, If you havent't already got it I would highly reccomend you get a copy of:

THE ART OF ETCHING
E.S LUMSDEN
Dover Publications
ISBN-13: 978-0486200491



This was my bible in the beginning - some of the Does and Don't can be stretched a tad!

Preparing the plate
I use 16 gauge copper plate (1/16th inch) from Intaglio printmaker which comes in 500mm x 1000mm sheets polished on one side and covered with a plastic protective sheet. This I cut up (very carefully!) by scoring into it over 50 times with a heavy craft knife and then snapping it away. This may sound a little brutal but I have not had a lot of luck with guillotined plates - however sharp the blade there nearly always seems to be a slight bending or compression of the metal which is almost impossible to straighten and which causes the prints to fade away at that edge. Most of us don’t have a heavy duty guillotine lying around the house and trusting this to others can result in scratches and plates that vary in size and are not perfectly square. I have experimented with three plate colour etchings in the past and this can make the plates difficult to register.

Before removing the plastic coating I lay each plate face (covered side) down on several sheets of newspaper in a well ventilated room or not too windy garden. This none polished surface is then given an even and thorough covering of an acetone based car spray paint. (I used to get mine from a firm in Kings Cross that sold it to Taxi drivers - be careful not to get a none acetone paint as it will come off in the acid. ) That done, I roughly bevel the edges of the plate to a 45° angle using a coarse file. This is optional but I then find it much easier to roll the plate - with less chance of the roller catching the edge. When the print is finally ready to edition I finish off this bevelling with fine sandpaper and polish it up with the back of a spoon which gives a sharp clean edge to the prints.

After removing the plastic coating I clean the adhesive residue off with white spirit and check for scratches. If the plate has tarnished I polish it with Brasso.

Before laying the ground on I degrease the plate. Traditionally this would have been ammonia and chalk but in a domestic situation washing powder works as a substitute (be careful of the particularly gritty ones!). Cream cleaners such as Jif (Now unfortunately renamed Cif!) used to be perfect as they contained ammonia but in our health and safety conscious times this has been changed and they just don’t work as well.

For heating the plate I use an ordinary domestic cooker (Gas is better, but with a bit of practice an electric ring is just as good. Manoeuvre the plate with a metal spatula so it is heated evenly and place it on a flat smooth heat resistant surface (this will get ground on it so check it can be cleaned with white spirit!)

Hard Ground
If you have used the roller recently and it has been kept wrapped in a plastic bag you will probably have enough ground already on the roller. Otherwise draw on the hot plate with the ball of hard ground - about enough to sign your initials 1 inch high is usually enough for medium size plate. The ball should skid across the plate without dragging. Roll the ground until it is even and the plate looks as though it has been coated with golden syrup (thicker than this and it will chip or make finer lines bite unevenly. You may well need to re-heat and re-roll the plate several times. Use the roller in a swooping motion in one direction to pick up the ground, and backwards and forwards to load more ground on to the plate. As the ground cools it will become sticky and hard to keep even. When reheating the plate be careful to remove it just as the ground starts smoking as further heating will cause the ground to scorch and become porous to the acid.

Obviously having a ground the colour of Golden syrup an a copper plate is not going to be that easy to draw on! The ground will be a matt non reflective finish when cooled and the copper will be shiny but I would advise smoking the plate.

Smoking the plate
This involves clamping the plate on one edge with a pair of swan necked adjustable pliers (protect the surface of the plate with a small piece of folded card) and holding it above your head with the grounded surface facing down. This should be done before the plate has cooled entirely. Gently smoke the ground with a burning bundle of tapers (about 10 bound spirally from the bottom with masking tape) so that the carbon softens the wax and is absorbed into it. Start further away from the plate and as the ground starts appearing shiny brush the tip of the flame (about an inch above the visible flame) across the plate in a systematic pattern. This will take a bit of practice but the plate should cool to a uniform semi mat finish. I harden the wax at this point by running it under a cold tap. Any powdery carbon on the surface can be gently rubbed away with an orange polishing duster. Examine carefully for any specks of copper showing through as THESE WILL BE BITTEN!

The surface can now be drawn on using a variety of instruments. I have used an old dart with a pencil screwed into the barrel and presently use a sewing needle threaded through a propelling pencil instead of leads!

I will be adding more about different grounds, acid times and printing tips later!

Great stuff!

Thanks for your comments on my painting, and sorry it has taken so long to reply. I haven't logged on for ages and had forgotten how to do stuff! Love your cloud pictures - I haven't really got beyond fluffy white on blue for skies and these are amazing!

I tried my hand at just about every form of printmaking before settling for etching back in the 80's - it suited my deliberate and pendantic nature and although I had a lot of success with my geometric screen-prints at the same time I liked the fact I could print a plate in batches and not end up with plan chests full of editions rotting away.
When I moved to Rye in 1993 The first thing I bought was an etching press. I joined all the local art groups only to find they wouldn't allow prints in their group exhibitions! I started doing acrylic paintings of local scenes, found they sold well and soon I was producing more paintings than prints.

When I split up with my partner and moved to Hastings a couple of years ago I had no option but to have my etching press moved to some friends in Appledore, a small village six miles north of Rye. The flat I am in is in a 17th century building and the press would have been just too heavy.

Lo and behold shortly after I did this the local rail network cut the service to Appledore (I don't drive) and I found my press well nigh inaccessible.

I now have a small benchtop press as well but I can't print the 12 inch x 16 inch plates that I used to do.

Because of this and because of the obvious market for my paintings I bought a Epson R2400 printer and GT-15000 scanner and now the vast majority of my income comes from giclee reproductions of my paintings.

The advantages are immense: Once scanned the images can be on my website in minutes and the files converted quickly for use as greetings cards and even a small artist's book.

All very good but.... Amongst traditional printmakers giclee prints provoke a mixed response. I have seen one particular website where the author devotes a sizeable page to a rant against these "rip-offs" and I do have my own reservations.

To confuse matters I recently reissued my St Pancras Station etchings in a set of giclee editions! The station has just been re-opened by Eurostar and there I was sitting on a series of large etchings of the station as it was 25 years ago!

I have just uploaded one of the original etchings; the series is probably one of the best things I have ever done and took nearly two years to complete.

Recent good news is I am close to doing a deal that will rescue my etching press and install it in the shop below my flat where I will be able to do etching demonstrations and sell prints in return for a reasonable rent!

I hope to include a blog on how these prints were done (I will be uploading the rest of the series) and giving away some of the secrets and techniques I use for etching here soon.

Colin Bailey - Book launch 8th December at the Martello books shop, Rye, East Sussex

TIME AND TIDE: the book of the complete set of paintings of Rye, Hastings and East Sussex.

48 pages, 35 colour plates.
180 mm x 180 mm
£12.50 + £2.50 p+p
ISBN 978-0-9506824-5-7

This work contains paintings not on the website and some which have never been exhibited. more details: `ryepress.com `_