Blencathra from Castlerigg Stone Circle

Finally finished and editioned the Blencathra mezzotint. Just in time to get it mounted and framed ready for Printfest in Ulverston on 5th and 6th May.

Blencathra from Castlerigg

200mm x 300mm

Mezzotint

Edition of 20

I have been working on this print on and off since last October and finally finished the platework and printed the edition over the last couple of days. I thought it would be interesting to know just how long it would take so I kept an accurate record of just how much time I spent working on it.

Grounding the plate with 24 passes of the rocker took 30 hours
Preliminary drawing took 3.5 hours
Drawing the design on the plate took 2.75 hours
Engraving the design on the plate took a further 160.5 hours, this time including printing a number of impressions at various stages to check progress on the platework.

Finally printing 23 impressions for the edition took 13.5 hours.

A total time of 210.25 hours, something of a surprise as the general impression that I had was that I'd spent a lot longer on it. This time was spread out over 6 months so I wasn't working continuously on just this one print. To put this in context, assuming a standard working week of 40 hours this would have taken a little over 5 weeks of continuous work.

So much for an Easter Break

Spent all weekend working on the mezzotint plate, printed two impressions and finally the end is in sight. Just a little bit of burnishing needed on the clouds to bring out the highlights and smooth out some of the abrupt tonal transitions and it will be ready to edition.