The Crow

My printmaking professor this past semester proposed an alpha-bestiary project, so I chose to do some research on the local crow population in Kitchener Waterloo and do some non-toxic intaglio copper plate etching. 

Mixing for a nice maroon ink

They gather in large roosts for the winter nights along Seagram and University (and sometimes even further down closer to ECH on campus). Research by Kevin J McGowan (http://www.birds.cornell.edu/crows/) provided some great insight into their behaviour and intelligence, which is actually not sinister at all but very intelligent and interesting. 

Some fun with chine-colle and japanese paper

I've never actually scratched right into a copper plate before for etching, it's kind of difficult to see what you're doing but it's definitely worth it. This is pretty much the simplest way to go about it so I would eventually try drawing into a soft ground vs this hard ground, aquatinting for some texture and gradients would be a fun challenge as well. 

Also a great big thanks to the map library we have on campus! They had some great map imaging resources from 1930 I believe to 2006. 

 

-Zana