Etching: Hard-Ground using FUTURE acrylic floor finish

Because FUTURE comes as a clear liquid you may wish to add a small percentage of blue food colour, Batik dye, or India Ink so that it is easier to see the hard-ground drawing on the plate. An alternative to adding a dye to this hard-ground would be to ink the plate up with Graphic Chemical water soluble relief ink after the FUTURE had dried on the plate.

If you are making a test plate, proceed with this and the following steps for both plates:

1. The metal (preferably roofing copper) plate is thoroughly sanded with an electric finishing sander and 320 grit wet-and-dry sandpaper and the sanding residue removed with a clean rag.
   
   
2. The plate is positioned vertically over an empty photo developing tray.
   
   
3. The FUTURE is poured over the entire plate from the upper most portion so that a veil of acrylic FUTURE covers the entire plate. Do this in such a way to prevent air bubbles forming on the surface of the plate.
   
   
4. Prop the plate up vertically to allow the excess run-off of the FUTURE onto newsprint. Allow the plate to dry naturally while moving it a few times so that the acrylic liquid does not build up at the bottom of the plate.
   
   
5. When the plate is dry, cover the back with contact paper or overlapping strips of plastic, self-adhesive (Scotch brand) wrapping tape to prevent the ferric chloride from biting the back of the plate.
   
   
6. Make your drawing with the etching needle. Remember to reverse the image, so that it will appear correctly when printed.
   
   
7. When finished with the drawing stage and ready to etch the plate, double a long strip of duct tape around a scrap of copper to create a means to pull the plate out of the vertical etching tank. Tape the opposite end from the copper scrap to the back of your plate. 
   
   
8. Immerse the plate in the tank of ferric chloride to etch it. You will probably want to make a small test plate the first few times that you do this to see how different times affect the width and darkness of the lines you make.
   
   
9. To create areas with more delicate lines, "stop out" lines before they have etched as deeply as lines which you want to be darker and richer. The deeper and wider the groove in the metal, the more ink it will hold and print, creating darker areas. Many different line weights can be obtained in your image by successive stopping out.

Using the FUTURE as a stop-out varnish:

FUTURE can also be used to "stop out" areas that you do not wish to etch while other, adjacent areas of the plate remain in the Ferric Chloride solution.

• Use two thin coats of FUTURE rather than one thick coat. A thick coat has a tendency to crack (which may be of great interest to some printmakers). If you feel that the actual store bought FUTURE is too liquid, leave it out for a few hours in an open photo developing tray to allow the water particles to evaporate from the acrylic. Monitor this evaporation until it reaches the desired viscosity.
• After rinsing your plate with water, check the depth of the etch with your fingernail, and look at it through your magnifying glass. You can prook it without removing the FUTURE, and if it is too pale, you can etch it further.
• For printing, see the handout.

Cleaning the ground off the plate:

The FUTURE hard-ground can be easily removed with a 10% soda ash solution provided that it is done so within a few hours of preparing this ground. Just add one teaspoon of soda ash powder to 1 litre of water. If you leave the FUTURE on the surface of the plate longer than a few hours you will need to make up a mild ammonia solution to remove the FUTURE. There are non-ammonia smelling floor strippers that are also available for removing FUTURE. But caution should be exercised with these products.

Removing plate tone with FUTURE

It is not really necessary to remove the FUTURE from your plate because it renders the plate with a glass like surface that makes wiping it very easy. This factor not only facilitates wiping but also is a great way to selectively add or subtract plate tone. Cotton buds dipped into a mild ammonia solution can be used to selective remove the FUTURE to allow plate tone to infiltrate the printed image. This presents an image manipulation opportunity that should not be ignored.