Winter Sleep

Winter Sleep. 
Triple-Plate Colour Etching. 
45.5cm x 45.5cm. 2014.

I finished a new print. I was on a tight deadline for this piece, which I still want to include in my upcoming exhibition "Small Pleasures" (see poster in previous post for details), while also starting to play with new ideas and new techniques for school. As you may have noticed, I have partly recycled an earlier image of hibernation which I've always enjoyed, but I was also inspired to make this piece after a winter getaway last January to the Apostle Island Ice Caves in Wisconsin. I tried to work with space a bit differently this time, and while the piece is still quite flat, the shadows on the snwo and the overlay of the icicles give the piece a certain depth.
Once again, I played with soap ground in the middle-ground of the piece and in the icicles, where it is particularly successful, I think. I used this piece to get acquainted with the new studio surroundings, and after moaning inwardly how much I miss the rosin box at Highpoint, I was pleasantly surprised by the smoothness of the airbrush aquatints I got, although it is much more work intensive to spray the aquatint multiple times in between etches. Well, that's it for today. Keep warm!