After four days at Indulkana, Beth and Basil drove each day the following week to the nearby community of Mimili, where we worked for the first time with the artists at Mimili Maku, the art centre there. Co-ordinator at Mimili Maku, Hannah Grace, looked after us well as we introduced a group of artists to silkscreen preparation and distributed etching plates to over 15 artists as well.
Basil set up a small acid tray outside and he and Beth were able to etch and aquatint all of the plates while they were conducting the workshop. The artists came out and blocked in areas of their zinc with a bitumen paint (distributed in very small quantities in found bottle caps) and each plate was taken through a number of tones in addition to the line drawings the artists did to begin with.
Hannah plans to continue with the project for some time and the best of the silkscreen images and etchings will hopefully be seen in 2013. The Mimili artists have taken very quickly to the new mediums and appear to have enjoyed the workshop in early December.
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