ErolinStudios
'Little Mouse'
'Little Mouse' is a mezzotint print of a cute little field mouse clutching a nut, printed onto Somerset Satin 250gsm acid free paper with oil-based ink. This is my first mezzotint print and an edition of just 8 prints.
Mezzotint is a very old technique, dating back to 1642. It's also a very time consuming process, as to make the plate you first have to use the rocker seen in the image below to cover the plate in thousands of tiny dots. These dots hold the ink and left as they are would print black. The image is then worked back into this by burnishing in the lighter areas. The resulting plate is quite delicate, so usually only a small print run is possible.
Like most of my prints the first stage was to draw out the design in my sketchbook. Transferring this to the mezzotint plate was no easy task however, and only a very rough outline was copied over. Luckily I still had my sketch for reference and was able to work in the highlights, leaving the shadows and a lovely velvety black background.
And here is the finished print. Printed onto Somerset Satin 250gsm acid free paper with oil-based ink.
This is a limited edition of 8 prints.
Actual print size: 6 x 6cm
Paper size: 14 x 14cm (aprox)
