About Sara Youngman
Biography
Born in Detroit in 1953, I spent my childhood between Dearborn, Detroit and Kalamazoo. At age 20 I moved out of my parents house into the first of 11 apartments from Detroit to Lansing to Ypsilanti to Kalamazoo to Grand Rapids. In 1992 I moved to Grand Rapids to work as a civil servant and in 2000 finally bought a home here.
I am an untrained artist; my last “school” art class was in seventh grade (1966).
Artist Statement
On March 28, 2008 a lifelong dream came true - I became an artist. A friend invited me to her studio to learn drypoint. After eight hours I was hooked and have been printing ever since. (In November 2009 I returned for a two hour etching class.)
I have no formal training, I allowed childhood inadequacies to keep me from artistic endeavors for over 40 years. I pick up what I can from experimentation, other artists and books - chine collé, two-plate printing, woodblock printing, white line printing, even tried watercolor painting which I did not enjoy.
The first print I created on my own, in May, 2008, was accepted into a museum regional show. I have been incredibly lucky to have my work appear, thus far, in shows from Grand Rapids to Muskegon to Kalamazoo to Michigan City, IN to Austin, TX. See Shows for the complete list of exhibitions.
More succinctly, I am going about this in a very non-linear manner - more or less from the middle outwards. Many of my designs are like free-form poetry, with some images taken from photographs of my garden and cats. When I first began adding color to images I used paint - acrylic and watercolor - but found the process unsatisfying. I've since discovered various artist/archival pens which are a pleasure to work with.
Process
I do not plan my images, I begin with a line which takes me to another shape and on and on until I feel the image is complete - it's more doodling than drawing. Sometimes it takes a number of revisions to get the image just right. I print the plate and can usually see exactly what needs to be done to “fix” the image. I have made up to five revisions on one plate.
When asked what one of my images is, or means, I always say it's whatever you think it is. My goal is to create art directly from my imagination onto the plate, which then intrigues and draws the viewer in.
To begin a printing session I first have to tear sheets of BFK Rives paper (to have all edges deckled) into the right sizes for the plates I plan on printing and put them in a bin of water to soak, which loosens the fibers. The paper is carefully blotted between towels before printing.
Drypoint
I began with drypoint as it was more affordable - I could use plexiglas plates instead of copper - and it did not require chemicals. The plexi can easily be cut into any shape. The plate edges/corners are sanded so the paper won't be cut in the printing process. Then I draw the image using traditional etching tools; I work with a lighted magnifying lamp to get the fine details. The same process is used with copper, which I now prefer. Copper can be purchased polished or unpolished. If unpolished, I have to use fine sandpaper, or burnishers, to get rid of any lines as they will print.
Once the plate is complete, oil-based etching ink is rolled over the entire plate, then wiped off with tarlatan (like very stiff cheesecloth) - leaving only the drawn lines filled with ink. The plate is placed on the printing press bed, a damp piece of paper is carefully placed over it, along with a sheet of newsprint to protect the press blankets. The blankets are lowered to cover the plate and everything is run under the press roller. The pressure of the roller pushes the wet paper into the ink-filled lines and the print is created, along with the embossed edges of the plate. The paper is carefully pulled off the plate to show the image on it. The printed image is the reverse of the drawn image.
The prints are stacked, cushioned between blotters and topped with weights to keep them flat; depending on how wet the paper is, they are dry in 2-3 days.
This process is repeated for each print.
Etching
A copper plate is degreased by rubbing it with 0000 steel wool and Brasso in a circular motion. The plate is rinsed with soap and water and dried. A thin layer of liquid hard ground is applied with a paint brush. The brown ground hardens as it dries on my industrial size hot plate. Soft ground is applied in the same way - ask if you're interested in learning more about soft ground.
Once the hard ground is dry, using the same etching needles as in drypoint, the design is lightly drawn through the ground until the copper is exposed. All exposed copper will be etched. The plate is suspended in a tank of ferric chloride for about 40 minutes to be etched The plate can be etched with hard ground first, then re-etched with soft ground, or vice versa. Some of my plates are a combination of soft/hard ground etching and drypoint.
When etching is completed, the ground is cleaned off and printing is done the same as with drypoint.
To make changes to an etched plate, I can either cover it with liquid ground again, and re-etch it, or draw directly into the copper (drypoint).
Fewer prints can be made from a plexiglas plate than a copper plate, although my lines are so deep I manage to get more prints than one would expect. I've limited my plexi editions to between 15-25 and the copper to 30. This means that I will not print more than the stated number of the edition. The plate will be struck (a line drawn across it) once the edition is complete. (I have yet to complete an edition...) And, untraditionally, my editions are not of identical prints, while the image remains the same, I play with colors and chine collé and print only a few at a time as I prefer making new plates to the hard work of printing them.
All my prints are originals, hand-printed by me at Aardvark Press. I do not make reproductions or giclée prints.