How to Make a Sugarlift Etching
A: Sugarlift a dissolving medium that causes your resist to lift off your etching plate in all the right places. This allows you to create a wash-type painting that you can aquatint. It takes a little patience, but printmakers tend to have that quality anyway. You will need to know how to aquatint to use this technique.
Q: What's the benefit of this technique?
A: Sugarlift is a great way to get painterly qualities in an etching. You can paint broad areas of dark values and get a good sense of what the outcome will be when you print. You can leave "brushy" marks, or not as you prefer. Of course, the image will still be reversed.
A: There may be some sugarlift mediums available commercially, but the easiest way is to make your own. You will also need a clean, degreased etching plate with the appropriate etching solution for the metal you are using; an aquatint solution or spray enamel paint; Future Floor Wax, sugar or honey, India Ink or other liquid colorant, paint brushes appropriate for the size and style of painting you want to do on the plate, and an etching needle. I also like to have a moderately stiff paint brush to help brush the resist away when it starts to lift.
A: It's simple! Add twice as much sugar as you have liquid and heat until dissolved. Cool and stir in India Ink or similar colorant. An easy alternative is to stir a little colorant into honey (but I hate to waste honey). Use a studio pot or a container that will never return to your kitchen to cook up a batch. The colorant doesn't matter, it just makes it easy for you to see where you have painted. India Ink is already liquid and has good opacity so that's what I use.
A: Make sure your etching plate is clean and degreased. Take a paintbrush and paint your image with sugarlift. Take care that the lines are not too fragile. Broad areas work best for this technique. You can go back in later with an etching needle and add detail. When the sugarlift is dry, or in the case of honey, at least stable and no longer runny, you can pour Future floor wax over the whole plate. Let the wax dry completely. Overnight would be good.
A: Now that your image is dry and coated with wax, place it into warm water. Since acrylic floor wax is clear, you can see your image under it. As the honey or sugar melts, it releases the bond with the plate and causes your acid resistant coating (the floor wax) to lift. It is helpful to prick through the wax--just in the area where your sugarlift image is --before or while it is setting in the water to get the lifting action started. You can do this with your etching needle. It's not necessary to be aggressive, just get it started and let the warm water do the rest. If you are too aggressive, you run the risk of tearing the resist away in areas you don't want to lift.
Q: What do I do next?
A: Remove the plate from the water and gently clean off any remaining sugarlift. When the plate is clean and dry, apply an aquatint using either a light spray of Krylon Spray Enamel or a commercial airbrush aquatint. When the aquatint is dry, you can etch the plate as you normally would for etching. To add detail, scratch into the acrylic floor wax with your etching needle just like you would for any resist. If you want to add extensive detail, it is a good idea to coat the wax with some black tempera paint first so you can see where your needle has scratched. The tempera will wash away in the acid (or you can rinse it off), but your scratched image will etch.