May 27, 2021
PETIT2 ’s ABC
"Z" Zinnia
Flower language: Happiness to think of absent friends
seen from United Kingdom
seen from China
seen from Poland
seen from Türkiye
seen from Türkiye
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Canada
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from Italy
seen from United States
seen from Italy
seen from China
seen from China
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from France
PETIT2 ’s ABC
"Z" Zinnia
Flower language: Happiness to think of absent friends
The plates before (rhs) and after spit bite. The areas where the stop out was not fully cleaned off the plate are visible on rhs plate. Unexpectedly these areas affected the process & were visible on the subsequent prints (above).
My aim was to make the 'double arrows' logo less obvious by reversing the usual order in the application of aquatint and stop-out. Instead of applying aquatint on the plate first the logo was stopped-out & the aquatint applied afterwards.
The effects were subtle but visible. However in order to achieve more noticeable results in future I will apply the stop-out more thinly & coat with aquatint before it is fully dry.
The aim being for the stop-out to crack & craze slightly allowing the acid to act on the plate and create a random effect on the logo.
Double plate print. The first plate is See It! BIG process #2 (see below) using a mix of red-black ink. The plate of See It! BIG process #1 in black ink was then printed over the top. Although not clear in this image, the resulting colour was appealing. Further work needs to be done on both plates in order to give the desired effect. I am interested in experimenting with other colour variations.
A print of See It! BIG process #1 after spit bite. I am very satisfied with the direction in which this image is going. The key figural elements stand out much better from the background but without all of the 'haziness', which gives a sense of emergence, being lost. Some further spit biting in key areas is required but I do not wish to make everything too clear and defined.
The plate of See It! BIG process #1 after spit biting for the purposes of comparison with the resulting print (above)
See it! BIG process and etch #1
I returned to the See it! #1 in order to work further with the plate and bring out the various figural elements. The rhs image is the plate with an aquatint and stop-out of parts of the plate prior to applying a spit bite etch
Laura Owens (b. 1970), American
Untitled, 2010; color sugar lift, spit bite and soap ground aquatints, edition of 25, 3 panels; each 31 x 23.25 in.; printed at Crown Point Press
Amy Sillman on Laura Owens:
To upend old-school (i.e., East Coast) formalism, ambitious painters like Owens and her peers threw humor, debasement, and self-reflexivity at it. Owens in particular took liberties with space. Her early work is about wittily reconstructing the spaces within painting, using extruded vanishing points, floors on drunken tilts, and crazy scale shifts, all in the service of literally finding new places for herself to be, in painting terms. In her hands, space is a feeling.
Laura Owens's work is on view at Matthew Marks Gallery, NYC from 2025/02/13 to 2025/04/19.