Dry point and sticking to my "good habits"...

I try to stick to my good habit, even though this time I didn't have time to start the engraving before engraving session... Which means I'll loose one week if I'm not able to concentrate only on printing and modifications at site. Well, that's how it goes on, I always have something I didn't do as I optimistically planned. But I don't complain as long as I feel some progress or other satisfactions, so is good enough for this time! : )

Here below is the later work today of the dry point engraving. I'm not quite satisfied so I'll see if I can fix it, once I've found out what to modify. I'm not convinced by the dark border up left, there should be some light coming through. And there might be too much contrast in general, I feel the need of lighter grays, so maybe I will soften some of the darks, if I can manage that.
What I like with this dry point technic is when I work spontaneously with a result that won't need too many corrections. That's what I'm working towards.

Hours of work later... (and we are suddenly end of january!)

to be continued next week... 

06.03.12

Finally several weeks later, the plate is finished. 

I've darkened the bottom part, putting it in the shadow to render the glass jar, otherwise too translucent impression.

In general, instead of lighten my darks, as I said I would above, I've darken the atmosphere around the strong darks. Nothing I calculated very much, but that felt like a natural and logical way to arrange the image. 

Finally, the preparing sketches are much lighter. They help as research and guidelines, but I don't keep stuck to them, just I don't keep stuck to my subjects in general when I draw from life. What's interesting with engravings are the darks with the lights, if the whole thing is high keyed the interest of dry point technic is lost, in my opinion.