etching talk - doug osa

This must be the street. There are cars parked up and down the curb closest to the house where the etcher will speak.

New members who have recently joined and those I have met on previous occasions mill through the house.

The studio tour is down a short flight of steps, a few steps past the garage, a door to the right and voila, we gather to view Osa's recent etching,

It is these super fine lines - all of them. Why would it take one hundred hours to draw them? Simply - because they are not drawn on the metal plate. An wet acid bath eats grooves down into the copper plate. The final result comes from subsequent times in the acid bath. Doug Osa refers to the process as "controlled." Unlike the immediacy of drawing with a pencil on paper, the etched impression has stages of treatment before inking the plate and pulling a proof from the press.

(ABOVE) Spread out for comparison, six preliminary impressions display the corrections and types of line-work that were made as the whole image progressed. OMG!! Note the changes on the folds of the tablecloth.

Sunflower in a basket.

Two minutes.

Depth test.

Our host Doug Osa is talking about MEZZOTINT. The print maker wants the inked image to start out jet black. This is achieved after hand-rocking a metal tool across a copperplate for several hours. Thereafter the artist scrapes areas of the plate where he wants his design to be lightened. A burnishing tool with oil on the copperplate helps to polish an area, to make the inked print as white as the artist desires. He refers to modern day mezzotint artist Carol Wax, as her book on the subject is exchanging hands. Judith holds the book up for me to see.

small mezzotint plate in his hand.

Understanding the process is an eye opener.

Interview with Doug in 2014 HERE

Studio tour took place March 4th, 2017

Submitted by Karl Marxhausen