A fascination with colour – Viscosity Printing

I have been viscosity printing my etchings for many years now, the rich, luminous quality you can achieve is really quite addictive. Although each printmaker working with this technique will have their own methods, basically you need a deeply bitten etching plate (although you can also get reasonable results with a textured collagraph) an etching plate needs to have at least three levels to hold ink. Three different colour inks are mixed to different consistencies and applied to the plate using a range of hard and soft rollers.

How I choose colours

I tend to use high contrast colours for viscosity printing and use a bright, glaze colour for the second of the three colours. I find if I use a light toned colour for the second colour it helps to shine or ‘sing’ through from beneath the top colour.