This week I've started work on a new mezzotint working on a plate 150mm x 200mm. My starting point is this pencil drawing of an old pathway dappled by shadows. Should work well as a mezzotint I think. I'd laid the ground on the copper plate months ago and then put it to one side. I couldn't at the time, come up with an image that I was confident would work well and justify the amount of time I would need to spend working on it.
After completing the pencil rough the next step was to scan it into my laptop, flip it horizontally 180 degrees and print it out. Although this is an actual place there is no obvious recognisable focal point or subject matter, so reversing it isn't strictly necessary but I would like the final print to be as I conceived my original drawing. Once printed out I transferred the reversed copy to my copper plate using typewriter carbon paper.
The original drawing is top left, the reversed copy top right and I'm just starting to work on the dappled highlights between the tree branches. These are the lightest areas of the print and I want them to print as clean paper so will take the most scraping and burnishing. Once I have established these I can work back through the mid tones to the areas that I'll leave untouched and will print as black. Months of work to go yet.
