Jessie Hornbrook is an Assistant Professor of Art and Printmaking at the Department of Art in the University of Central Arkansas. Conway, AR, USA. She got in touch with the workshop in August 2017 to show her keen interest in attending as a resident artist to learn the processes of electro-etching, given its advantages as a safer and more environmentally-friendly etching process. After some funding difficulties, she finally got funds from her university to travel to Gran Canaria and make her dream come true for three weeks in May.
Jessie is an expert printmaker. Her technical skills allowed her to assimilate the processes with ease and to make plates with highly accomplished and expressive images inspired, in some cases, by motifs from our garden or the landscape seen from the studio. She has worked a broad range of techniques: electro-etching lines on hard ground, and open bite electro-etching for tonal areas (electrotint). She has also tried her hand at etching with graphite ink resist, as a hard ground and produced grey tones of different intensities by diluting the varnish. She worked passive electro-etching (without electricity) on zinc plate, and semi-dry electro-etching, galvanized lines and galvanography.
Although not many prints of hers appear on this page, it must be borne in mind that most of them were made with two matching plates to apply different colours to the image. Great work! She also re-used two plates that had already been printed to apply electro-etching and make new images with total success. I hope her stay has been profitable and enjoyable for her and that she can continue to experiment with electro-etching.
Jessie is an independent artist who has been several times to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria to do various different sports and to participate in cultural activities. She also went with ourselves and some friends on a Spring hike through the flowers of Barranco Oscuro.
Pictures from the workshop
Jessie Hornbrook's electro-etchings
More information about Jessie Hornbrook