Liquid Metal Guitars

Over the last few months New Leaf has collaborated with custom guitar creator Liquid Metal Guitars to create a series of etched aluminum guitars.

A shot of a guitar back etching

Water droplet pattern resist in between etches

A proposed Snake Skin Guitar design



Here you can see how the guitar appears during etching, the blue film is Puretch and acts a resist from the acid. The film is holding up very well considering how hot the plate becomes during etching.



You can see just how feisty the etchant reacts with the aluminum in this video, the shimmering you can see on camera is the acid bubbling and releasing fumes. At the end the plate had become so hot Peter had to drop it and cool it with water



And the final step, cleaning the Guitar post etching, this was done with a splash of lacquer thinner, note how the puretch shrivels up and pops off in some places when in contact with the solvent. The finished Guitar back is starting to reveal itself

The final piece.



Above you can see the plate dropped in the ferric chloride and see the reaction taking place underneath. The reaction slowly becomes visible through the sludge in an almost perfect image of the text. Below Are images of the etching, note the disconcerting swirling fumes.

The finished Guitar back with "Liquid Metal" text





And finally our most recent guitar: A custom drawing of a Great Dane, exposed into puretch and etched again with ferric chloride into a full guitar body.

The finished guitar body and below: a print pulled from the guitar by inking and printing as an intaglio plate. We are tempted to print this in relief... more to come.

Peter travels to Pangnirtung, Baffin Island

Journey to the Arctic Circle

















In September 2011 Peter traveled to the city of Pangnirtung on Baffin Island to train Inuit print makers of different skill levels his techniques.
Recruited by the Kyra Fisher, General Manager of the Uqqurmiut Centre for Arts & Crafts, Peter spent an entire month surrounded by the landscape and artists of the north.






















While there he met Matty McNair, of North Winds Polar Expeditions.
Above: the Arctic Adventure and Polar Expedition leader over looks the landscape









































































































The Print Training

















Above: Jolly, Eena, Becky, and Ann in the studio

Peter brought his own set of methods to the Inuit artists and printmakers, working with the artists there to translate their images into prints. Below is a spackled plexiglass plate capturing the gesture of the artist's marks around the airplane shapes.

















































And although Peter traveled there to teach he learned a couple tricks himself from the artist's there.
Below: Andrew waxing sheets of Mayfair Paper for stencil printing.

















And on Peter's return, in the collaborative spirit of New Leaf Editions, we began printing the first half of the collagraph type spackle print, created by artist Elisapee Ishulutaq, to be sent back to the Pangnirtung studio and finished by a printer with stencil techniques.















This complicated little viscosity print involves inking the plate with stiff ink in the recessed areas and wiped clean, then surface rolled with a loser ink over top. If done correctly the two colours don't mix and no transfer occurs on the roller.




















































































































The other prints New Leaf has been working on for Artist Elisapee Ishulutaq are the little warrior men below














New Leaf created softground/spit bite plates to capture the character of her drawings as closely as possible, the two original drawings are in the middle. Above and below are the prints we created after the drawings.
Below: Lesley spit bites a total of six plates to mimic the soft crayon pastel drawings


















Here you can see the original drawing and below it the print











Below: The printing sequence, three plates a la poupee






















































































Above: The little warrior wall

Greg Murdock

The past three weeks at New Leaf have been printing a three plate etching, à la poupée for artist Greg Murdock.
Below Lesley inks up the black plate


Here Mariya is inking up the second plate, a combo of orange and blue grey:




Multi-Plate Registration:

Sometimes it takes two!



Above Lesley marks registration



Ta-da! Its the Murdock wall