2024 ~ Liz Chalfin "July Rains"
4” x 8” image
Photopolymer intaglio
Edition size: 95
2-plate print. Plate 1 inked in Cranfield Prussian Blue etching ink + Cranfield Bone Black etching ink + Zea Mays Printmaking Transparent base. Plate 2 inked in Cranfield Process Yellow etching ink + Zea Mays Printmaking Transparent base. Printed on Hahnemuhle Copperplate bright white paper. Signed and number on front of print below image, titled on back bottom left.
This image began with a series of sumi ink drawings made in response to the intense summer rains that caused our rivers to overflow and flooded the valley where I live. A few of the abstract drawings captured the feeling of the rain coming down in sheets and washing over the landscape, the whipping wind, plants poking up through the waterlogged fields. Without a finished image in mind, I made photopolymer intaglio plates from six of the drawings with the intention of building the image in layers. I began arbitrarily inking and printing one plate on top of another. I introduced line etched copper plates, experimented with color and plate order. I did this for weeks. During this open, experimental phase, I turned one of the proofs on its side and there in the field of abstraction I discovered the image that became July Rains. It captured both a sense of the local landscape and the downpour we experienced. I cropped the drawings and made new plates using just these small sections. Then I began the process of fine tuning the ink color and transparency until I had a BAT print. I printed the edition at Zea Mays Printmaking, Florence, Massachusetts in January and February 2024.
