At any given Renegade Craft Fair, you can expect to see many printmakers showing off their talent and creativity.  But it’s rare to see many that use the age-old technique of Etching.  If you plan on coming out to this weekend’s RCF in San Francisco, you will be lucky enough to marvel over the works of Julia Lucey’s Printshop, and her beautiful nature-inspired etchings.

If you don’t know much about this 500 year old printing process, Julia provides a fantastic step-by-step process for those interested on her website here.  Here’s a brief description for those who aren’t in the know:  ”Etching, a form of intaglio, is a printmaking technique developed over 500 years ago.  An etching is made by using acid or a salt to bite into the surface of a flat metal plate. The longer the plate bites, the deeper the bite is, and the darker the mark. Most other printmaking techniques, such as relief (linoleum block, woodblock) and silkscreen, only produce one tonal value per plate, but with etching, many values from the lightest grey to the darkest black and many different types of marks can be created on one plate.”

Julia’s imagery is beautiful, inspired by the wildlife of California and her adventures in the backcountry.  She is passionate about animal conservation, and donates 5% of all of her sales to the Buffalo Field Campaign - an organization dedicated to preserving the wild buffalo of Yellowstone.  Her latest work deals with the “absence of animals. For example, in California there is so much imagery of the Grizzly Bear, it is on our state flag, yet it is extinct here. I have cut out ghost images from older etchings and collaged them into new pieces.”

You can view all of Julia’s work here, and purchase it here - and at this weekend’s Renegade Craft Fair in San Francisco!