Tara Donovan collaborated with etching printer Julia D’Amario to devise a way for Tara to make images of bubbles on copper plates. The idea was to approximate the techniques she uses in her own studio to create her large scale unique pieces.
Ferric chloride solution, an etching corrosive, was combined with liquid bubble soap. Tara used a straw to blow air into this mixture making different size bubbles that she carefully picked up with a plastic spoon and laid on the aquatinted plates. The bubbles were left on the plates until they popped or dissolved, allowing the ferric chloride to etch the surface of the plate.
When Tara completed the process of applying bubbles to each plate, Julia cleaned the acid residue and rosin off the plate and printed them. The variety of dark to light bubble images was achieved by controlling the saturation of liquid in each bubble.
The final editions were made by printing each plate twice. First in a light blue and then printing slightly off register in black to create the illusion that the bubbles are floating off the paper.
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