Inclined Plane Mezzotint - Part 2

I made a lot of progress on this print tonight. I started by flipping and then transferring my sketch onto the copper plate. I use white wax-free transfer paper, but then I go over it again with pencil to help it stick.

I spent 3 hours or so scraping and burnishing the image into the plate. It took a lot of effort to get the center strip of plate down to bare copper again. The teeth of the mezzotint rocker really make a deep mark! So once I scraped down to that level, I used a burnisher and smoothed it all down. Hopefully when I run a test proof it'll be clear.

Here is the plate after the session tonight. I really liked using the 100 tooth rocker for this print. I'm not sure how it's going to print, but it had a distinctly different feeling when I was scraping. It felt much smoother than my typical 85-tooth plates.

Next up for this project I'll be tearing down paper and running a test proof of the plate.

I also bought an old cigar box that I'm going to paint or draw on and possibly use it as a holder for my small collection of mezzotint rockers. I only have 3, but they were not cheap so I need to find a way to store them safely. So keep an eye out for that on the blog and eventually on the YouTube.

Also let me know down in the comments if there is something you'd like me to focus on for the videos or blog posts. These projects are usually long, so I try to edit down to the most interesting parts of what I'm working on but I might inadvertently edit out something you're interested in, so let me know!

-G