Turquoise Crow

I think this is the largest print I've made so far. It only just fit on my little press. At an estimate, from memory, it measures about 40cm across. It was made by drawing with thick PVA glue straight from the bottle, then grit poured on top, like glitter! I then sealed the plate with shellac.

The texture is very deep and it embosses the image into the paper as well as printing the inked image. I went through quite a bit of tarlatan (the cloth used to rub back the inked up plate) because the grit kept ripping it up, like rubbing cloth over sand paper. I also used an etching needle to score into the cardboard plate for the lose lines around the bird. I wasn't sure how this would work, but it seems to have worked as well as if it were dry point into copper. The edition is small, only 4 or 5. I'm hoping to have it in my upcoming exhibition at Bird's Gallery, Kew in September.