Researchers:  Kevin Pomerleau and Daniel Chiaccio, 2015

Soft Ground is a very impressionable, acid resistant, wax based medium which allows an artist to obtain delicate pencil-like lines and direct object impressions through etching. Similar to the traditional characteristics of an asphaltum based soft ground, the Soy Wax ground begins as a solid, liquifies when exposed to heat, but reverts back to a solid when cooled on a plate.

Marnix Everaert of the Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium shared his recipe and process for the “Soy Wax Litho Ink Soft Ground” when he came to Zea Mays Printmaking as a residency artist in 2015.  This research project took the process further to explore how it would hold up in a variety of circumstances including varying mordant strengths and stage biting.