Photopolymer Etching

Photopolymer or Solarplate Etching is fundamentally a photographic process and I generally use my own original photography as a starting point. The image is usually manipulated slightly to provide a high contrast black and white image. 

The printing plate is made from steel, coated with a photosensitive polymer, which when exposed to UV light will alter the state of the polymer and effectively 'etch' into the coating.

The photographic image is transferred to silkscreen film first, and this is used to 'expose' the image onto the printing plate, using a UV exposure unit. 

Once the plate is exposed, any etched polymer is washed away with water and you are left with the image etched into the coating of the plate, which can then be inked and printed according to usual intaglio printmaking methods.

For me personally, the image that is produced has a soft, almost sketched quality and reproduces exceptionally well on cotton rich printmaking papers.