GREG HOWDEN ETCHINGS

Printing from an etched plate dates back to the early 16th century. Over a period of time many of the finite skills of this art have been gained and lost.

My first exposure to etchings was as a minor in my formal studies of Sculpture as a major. The techniques taught were very primitive, shellac was used as a stop out which not only did not cover well but had the added unfriendly characteristic of being really difficult to remove. Zinc plate was used because it was cheap I suppose and Nitric acid was the etchant. Years later I decided to take things more seriously, starting with etching press it seemed that most I had seen suffered from design faults resulting in warped bed plates and inaccurate settings. Plans were made were made to make something correct from an engineering point of view and working with a design draftsman over the course of a year a press was eventually built or overbuilt. The engineering shop I used specialized in custom made machine tools and was large in size. The press built resulted in a 40 x 60 inch bed plate of 1 inch steel. A solid steel roller 9 inches in diameter top and 10 x 40 inches bottom roller. The huge rollers were turned to a tolerance of +/- .002" The frame from 3/4" steel and roller posts 3". All components were "stressed relieved" meaning that they are placed in massive oven so the steel is set not to move by controlling the temperature. The major part of the frame was welded first and then "stress relieved" Adjustment was provided for installation on the concrete floor so that perfect alignment for the top and bottom roller was possible. Adjustment up and down for the top roller is by means of micrometer head screws in increments of .001" I believe that this is one of the largest etching presses ever built in the world and dub it the "sleeping giant" as I can see it has a future beyond my lifetime far beyond the use I have given it.
Next came refining the technical side of plate making and printmaking. Zinc plate stretches and distorts under pressure and heat. Copper has a finer, harder structure and is a better conductor of heat making it better suited as an etching plate as the aquatint process and printing requires the the plate to be heated. I have also found that the hardness of the plate can be further enhanced by hard chroming the plate a process I had to developed by consulting and working with technicians in the commercial printing industry. I also worked with traditional aquatint techniques where the rosin is applied to the plate and heated, the ferric chloride etchant bites between the heat set rosin which forms a resist. The longer a plate is left in the etchant the deeper the printed tone. Aquatint allows you to develop different tones by stopping out areas once they have been acid etched stepping the emersion time. I have found that by carefully mixing the acid or ferric chloride and controlling the temperature that the ink tones can be predicted.
Photo etching a 20th century innovation produces a solid stop out and can be used in combinations with aquatint and line. My initial photo etchings were produced by brushing a special photosensitive liquid to the plate, placing a prepared transparency made with my modified photo-copier and exposing this with the correct Ultra Violet source. This was further developed by using a similar commercial process utilized in making printed circuit boards to obtain a more accurate result. Inks and papers were trialed as well, as the only way to find out which works the best is to set test parameters and in the case of papers a number of papers were trialed taking prints from the same plate to assess the absorption and drying characteristics. All papers used in etchings are first soaked in water and blotted to produce a damp and pliable surface that the ink "from beneath the surface" of the inked etched plate is drawn from extreme pressure from rolling it through the etching press. Felt blankets of various density are placed between the printing plate and the press rollers to even out the print and the prints are dried in order to "set' the paper as flat as possible. Etchings really are a unique style of printing in as much that there is a great deal of time an intervention by the artist in preparing, re-working the plate taking prints at various stages until the work is complete.