NR: It could be a whole morning, and then when you’re getting completely lost you see what you’ve got. NS: How long are you doing that for before you ink it up? I have to have a certain amount of belief in what I’m doing. I don’t usually do that until I’ve already done quite a lot of work on it, because otherwise I just get lost. I can only see it when I ink it up, and I can’t ink it up while the aquatint dust is on the plate, so I’ve got to carry on with this mental picture, and then I’ve got to wipe it all off and see what I’ve got. I’m laying all these acids on, but I’m having to build a mental picture of my print while I’m doing it, because I can’t actually see what I’m doing. NR: They’re completely transparent, so when I’m painting with the acid, I can’t see what I’m doing, that’s the skill of it. NS: Do all the acids look the same in the containers? So I’m combining all these different acids to create my pictures. Different strengths of acid bite at different rates and you’ll get dark tones with 1:2, light greys with 1:15.
And I’m using a very strong acid, I’m using 1:2, which is one part acid to two water, or 1:5, 1:10, 1:15. And I’m etching with nitric acid, into the zinc, using various methods like laying an aquatint dust onto the plate and melting it on, then painting with acid in the same way as you might with watercolour. Nick Richards: Etchings are metal plates – I’ve got zinc plates here.
Nathan Sharp, Drake's: Could you tell me a little bit about the etching process? Last year we visited the studio of etcher Nick Richards, on the bank of the River Thames.
#Ipaint nick series
A new series featuring - you guessed it - artists, wearing Drake's shirts, at work in their studios.
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