My pre-rocked mezzotint plate arrived from Graphic Chemical two days ago. I was really excited about getting to work on the plate. I tried to forget that I was working on a 4″ x 5″ plate that cost $35!  I started out very lightly, sketching in a basic outline with a pencil on the surface of the rocked ground.  The ground seemed very fine, so I was very conservative when I started scraping and burnishing into the surface of the plate. Since I can’t add blacks back into the image, I figured that it’s better to scrape less, print a proof, and then see how far the image went.

It’s been fun assembling all of the various supplies that I need to print, many of the supplies have been sitting around, unused for many years now. I’m going to print on my tiny printing press that I bought back in…