The umber plate is comprised of plant matter I gathered in my garden. I love how soft ground picks up the finest detail. The black plate has some soft ground but was mostly created using various depths of aquatint. My background is science and I’m continually thrilled with what I see around me.
There are so many colors and textures beneath the waves. Planning this I walked along the beach, went to the aquarium and of course perused the library. After all that I still spent several days moving my sketched objects around the plate. Two plates were used. The upper green formation is a kale leaf and the bottom is a type of moss.
This print delights me. The book is a leather bound volume of Locke’s essay – “Human Understanding” published in 1857. I own that book. On top of it is a pear, grown on a neighbor’s tree and a small bird nest that fell out of one of my trees. I had never etched a bird nest and I struggled with this. Being a person with a love of science I drew it exactly as it was. I could have shaped it more dramatically and pretty but that’s how it was, rather crunched with twigs in disarray.
I have a degree in Anthropology and I concentrated on the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. The presence of Ravens are inescapable in the Northwest. Their stories and beauty permeate our lives. Plus a local Raven appears on my deck at breakfast awaiting its share?
Sedna is an important figure in Inuit mythology and the stories and depictions of her vary from Greenland to Alaska. She is sometimes depicted as part female and part fish, but she is always recognizable as a critical part of Inuit story telling and art. The first time I heard about her I was told that she had fallen into the water from her father’s boat and when she reached up to pull herself in he had chopped off her fingers rather than let her turn the boat over. From there her fingers became the animals of the sea. When I finally had her fingers drawn the way I wanted, I couldn’t cut them off. So here you see her sinking down due to the weight of her heavy parka.
Vicki Platts Art 