Reception 1

Jennifer Page
9.25" x 25"

photo etching and spitbite on copper

This image is a digital collage, using a digital photo of a pine tree in my backyard and an image of an antenna from the internet. The images were imported into photoshop, and the tree was retouched to get rid of the background. The image of the antenna was very small and when it was enlarged, the JPEG compression became very visible and I liked this because it looked like the antenna was radiating signals. The greyscale image was printed with an Epson 3000 on transparency with the printer resolution at 1440. I did not apply a bitmap screen this time and this makes the dots finer. The transfer function was used in the print software and the image was reduced to 95%. The plate was coated with Puretch photopolymer film, developed and etched with ferric. I added multiple spitbites in the sky to get very shallow etched grays. I used screenfiller for stopout in an airbrush for the spitbite aquatints. A little bit of moto engraving was used for darkening a few spots.

Coincedentally, one afternoon this past July while I was home, this tree was struck by lightning and then the lightning traveled underground and also hit my house. The same print was hanging on the wall in the room I was in when it struck.