The newly refurbished graphic arts studio of Jawahar Kala Kendra JKK ) organised a ‘Sugar Aquatint’ workshop on Friday. The workshop was conducted by Dr Mahesh Singh, associate professor, visual arts, IIS University. The workshop was attended by seven participants and will end on 4 July. The focus of the workshop is to teach the students, non-toxic techniques of creating ‘Sugar Aquatint’ prints and encourage eco-friendly practices.Dr Singh said that it is the teacher’s responsibility to teach their students to be more sensitive towards the environment and practise alternative methods of printmaking. "Using elements like Benzine, resin and acid can have severe harmful effects on the human body over time like skin cancer, lung illness and asthma. Here we are teaching them to use a sugar solution instead of resin and copper sulphate which release harmful fumes," he said.Throughout the course of the workshop, the students will make markings of their choice on a zinc plate using a solution of molten sugar and water. After this, they will apply a liquid ground on the plates and immerse it in water to dissolve the sugar. Following this, the plates will be dropped into an acid bath which will bite into the markings on the plate to create layer to layer textures. The etched plates will be then cleaned off, layered with ink and wiped off. Finally, a wet sheet of paper will be placed on top of the plate and passed through the press to produce the final print.A number of printmaking workshops have been conducted in the past few months at JKK like linocut, monoprint, screen printing, cyanotype, and etching.

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