Page 50 - International Artist2 110

ABOUT THE AUTHORS A short documentary about the making of Bottles & Jars III.

Daniel Maidman is an artist and writer. His work is included in the Peri Schwartz has exhibited
permanent collections of the Library of Congress, the New Britain her still lifes, studio interiors
Museum of American Art, and the Long Beach Museum of Art, as and self-portraits nationally for
well as numerous private collections. He has produced paintings over 30 years. Her work can be
in collaboration with best-selling novelist China Miéville, award- found in permanent collections
winning poet Kathleen Rooney, throughout the United States

independent film icon Martin and Europe, including the
Donovan, and noted installation Metropolitan Museum of Art, the
artist Erika Johnson. Maidman’s Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the
art and writing on art have been Library of Congress, the British
featured in International Artist, Museum, the Albertina and the
Forbes, ARTnews, Poests/Artists, Staatliche Museum of Berlin.
MAKE, Manifest, and more. He blogs She began her studies at Boston University’s School of Fine Arts,

for The Huffington Post. He lives and and continued on to Queens College to receive her Masters of Fine
paints in Brooklyn, New York. Arts. She currently lives in New Rochelle, New York.
Contact at Contact at
www.danielmaidman.com www.perischwartz.com

Glossary of terms
Aquatint Monotype
A cleaned copper plate is put in an “aquatint box”: a large closed The monotype is often called “the painterly print.” Schwartz uses
wooden box with a motorized fan. The fan distributes tiny specks Plexiglas and paints directly onto the surface. Dampened paper is put
of rosin evenly over the plate’s surface, like a coating of dust. After over the image and then run through an etching press. This transfers the
the rosin dust has settled, the plate is carefully heated, melting the ink from the plate to the paper, creating the print. Because the Plexiglas is
rosin so it can adhere to the copper just to the point that it creates transparent, Schwartz can trace the image on the back, add more ink to
little mounds. Once the plate has cooled, the artist paints all the the front and run the plate through the press repeatedly until the image
areas he wants white with a varnish. This protects those areas from she visualizes is complete.
being “bit” when the plate is immersed in an acid bath. The acid Rosin
bites channels around the rosin droplets. This procedure is repeated A hard resin from pine trees that is ground into particles and used in
several times to get a variety of tones. Only the channels will hold ink the aquatint process as an acid resistant ground.
or transfer it to a print—the rosin mounds and the varnish will not.
What is distinctive about an aquatint is the artist no longer has to Spit bite etching
build up tones with lines—now he can use flat shapes for tone. Rosin is applied to the plate in the same process used in an aquatint.
The artist then brushes dilute acid directly onto the plate, very much
Drypoint like a watercolor or wash drawing. Instead of immersing the plate
A technique of engraving in which a sharp diamond-pointed tool is in an acid bath, the biting happens when the artist brushes the acid
used on a plate to produce furrows that have a burr (a raised edge). directly onto the plate. This is repeated several times to get a dark tone.
The ink gets caught in the burr and a soft and velvety line is created. The way the acid pools when it is applied to the plate is unique to this
Key plate method. Unlike a traditional aquatint, the tone has variation.
For a composition requiring multiple plates, it is necessary to have a Sugar lift
reference plate to work back to in all subsequent plates. This is the key A complex technique involving the use of a sugar syrup, asphaltum
plate. It sets the composition in place for each successive plate so that (a sticky, heavy form of petroleum) and rosin to enhance the darkest
they overlap cleanly and produce a clear image. darks of a final etching.

Creating a Print 49

Daniel Maidman.indd 49 6/29/16 11:52 AM