* Print Technique Spotlight; Spitbite - Jenny Spain *

I intend to  periodically feature an artist who I feel uses a particular technique or process really well.
I shall start with Spit Bite
I was quite taken with these prints featuring spit bite by Irish print maker Jenny Spain, whose art work I became aware of during the past couple of months.  She is a member of one of the longest established print workshops for original prints in Ireland -  Graphic Studio in Dublin.
  I know only too well how certain issues  arise with doing spit bites e.g.,  when you proof them,  they don't seem very dark which can be disappointing, or the acid doesn't seem to be etching into the plate surface very much....and so on......Some advice, in this respect,  is available from Emily York  on the Magical Secrets website

Although she is using the more toxic resin which of course we no longer use at FDPW the principles are of course the same as in - that the plate is covered with dots which then leave dots of open area,   through which the 'acid' will bite through.
With the acrylic resist set up we now have installed at FDPW,  we would be  using Lascaux acrylic resist,  in place of rosin for the aquatint.   The resist is sprayed on to  metal plate with an airbrush then ferric chloride/ copper sulphate (for which we recently got the recipe from Paul Musgrove)   would be brushed on, dripped on, or applied with a squeeze bottle to create soft tones and watercolour bleed like marks  onto the plate.