Cycle III

Title: Cycle III
Size: 8"x10"
Medium: Aquatint
Edition of 5 printed in black ink on white paper.

Of the three prints in the Cycle series, this one was the most time consuming to produce. However, it is by far the simplest in terms of concept. The phases of the moon--a grand cycle that can be seen all over Earth and that influences us and our world in more ways than we can imagine. I love how something so enormous can be contained within a neat grid, so deceptively simple.

Despite the straightforwardness of the concept, it was very difficult to create this image on the plate. Also--perhaps you've noticed already--you can see that I made the mistake of creating the image the wrong way. I should have made it backwards on the plate so it would print correctly (with the phases reading from left to right). Instead it reads from right to left. D'oh! Rookie mistake, right there.

I created this plate using aquatint. The plate was aquatinted and bitten to pure black, then areas that I wanted to be lighter were scraped and buffed to smooth out of the surface (producing the light areas that you see in the print). I created the circles by tracing the bottom of a cup and traced the top of the cup for the large full moon in the center. The rest was all scraping and sanding.

Although I like the simplicity of this print both in terms of design and concept, I am still unhappy with many small details. The phases do not smoothly transition into one another, and the edges of some of the crescents are wobbly and not as smooth as I'd like. I definitely want to try my hand at this technique again--at least now I have some idea of what I'm in for.