Sustainable Salt & Sugar Aquatint Etching Course
with Francesco Geronazzo
Master the art of salt and sugar aquatint etching, unlock new expressive possibilities, and expand your creative printmaking practice.
Who This Course Is For
This online printmaking course is taught by internationally recognised printmaker Francesco Geronazzo and is designed for artists who want to explore the expressive possibilities of salt and sugar aquatint etching within a contemporary and environmentally conscious printmaking practice. The course offers an in-depth exploration of these innovative techniques, demonstrating how richly textured, atmospheric intaglio prints can be created using accessible materials and processes that are well suited to the home studio.
Suitable for artists at different stages of their practice, this course supports the development of confidence in both technical execution and creative decision-making. Under Francesco's guidance, participants will learn how to prepare and etch plates, create tonal and textural variation through salt and sugar aquatint techniques, and combine these methods with line etching to produce expressive, highly individual prints.
A key focus of the course is making contemporary intaglio printmaking more accessible. Francesco demonstrates practical approaches that minimise the need for large, specialised workshop facilities, allowing artists to continue exploring these techniques in a home studio while adopting more sustainable printmaking practices.
As the course progresses, you will deepen your understanding of intaglio printmaking, refine your technical skills, and gain practical strategies for confidently incorporating salt and sugar aquatint into your own artistic practice.
What is Salt & Sugar Aquatint Etching?
Salt and sugar aquatint are innovative intaglio techniques that enable artists to create rich tonal effects, expressive textures, and painterly mark-making on metal plates. Rather than relying solely on traditional aquatint methods, these approaches use simple, readily available materials to produce distinctive tonal surfaces and atmospheric imagery.
In these techniques, salt and sugar crystals create beautifully irregular textures and organic tonal patterns during the etching process. Together, they bridge the gap between drawing, painting, and printmaking, offering exceptional creative freedom and a highly tactile visual language.
Because these processes can be adapted for use in a home studio using accessible materials and more sustainable practices, they provide artists with an exciting opportunity to continue developing their printmaking outside a traditional workshop environment while achieving professional-quality results.
View Francesco’s work here and learn more about Margaret River Printmaking here.
Artist Interview: Francesco Geronazzo – Experimental Printmaking, Place, and Process
“For me, printmaking is about staying curious, exploring the process deeply with discipline, openness, and a willingness to keep learning. Curiosity opens possibilities, while discipline allows the work to reach its full potential. Printmaking becomes a way to connect to land, memory, and experience through direct, physical engagement with materials. After the first print, that’s where the real work begins, responding, adding, and allowing the process to evolve beyond tradition. I approach teaching in the same way: not by telling people what to do, but by sharing passion and authenticity, because that’s what truly inspires learning.”
Francesco Geronazzo
What You’ll Learn
By the end of the course, you will be able to:
Create expressive salt and sugar aquatint plates with rich tonal variation and organic textures.
Prepare, etch, clean, and refine metal plates using accessible, sustainable techniques.
Develop imagery by combining aquatint with drypoint, burnishing, and other intaglio processes.
Produce both relief and intaglio prints from the same plate and understand the creative possibilities of each approach.
Create expressive two-colour prints using layered inking and printing techniques.
Analyse and compare print results to make informed artistic and technical decisions.
Apply these techniques confidently within your own home studio or printmaking practice.
Course Structure
This course is divided into easy-to-follow chapters that allow you to pause, revisit, and learn at your own pace. Rather than focusing on isolated techniques, Francesco demonstrates a complete creative workflow, from preparing and etching plates through to producing finished relief, intaglio, and two-colour prints.
Throughout the course, you'll explore topics including:
Preparing, protecting, and refining etching plates.
Creating expressive marks and tonal effects using salt and sugar aquatint techniques.
Etching, cleaning, and modifying plates to achieve different visual outcomes.
Preparing paper and setting up the press for consistent printing results.
Inking and printing both relief and intaglio impressions from the same plate.
Refining plates using drypoint and burnishing techniques.
Creating expressive two-colour prints through layered inking and printing methods.
Comparing relief and intaglio results to better understand the creative possibilities of each process.
Examining examples from Francesco's own artistic practice to see how these techniques are applied in finished works.
The chapter-based format makes it easy to revisit individual techniques whenever you need a refresher while encouraging you to follow the complete printmaking process from start to finish.
Live Q&A Sessions with Francesco Geronazzo
Have your questions answered during two live Q&A sessions with Francesco Geronazzo.
Dates to be announced (TBA).
Course Projects
Artist BIO Meet Francesco Geronazzo
Francesco Geronazzo is an Italian-born printmaker and artist based in Margaret River, Western Australia, whose practice bridges traditional printmaking with contemporary experimentation. With a lifelong dedication to printmaking that began in his teenage years, Francesco has developed a body of work deeply informed by process, materiality, walking, memory, and place.
Francesco trained extensively at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, where he completed six years of printmaking studies under a range of influential teachers, engaging with both classical and experimental approaches. His education was further enriched through international experiences, including a seven-month assistantship in Porto, Portugal, with master printmaker Graciela Machado, and advanced studies in Spain with leading artists and lithography specialists. In 2010, he co-founded Officina de la Stampa in Bologna, a printmaking studio dedicated to education and contemporary practice.
Since relocating to Australia in 2013, Francesco’s work has evolved through a sustained engagement with the Australian landscape. His widely recognised project Connecting with the Land transforms bushwalking into what he terms “quiet performances,” using metal plates attached to his boots to record movement, terrain, and duration directly onto printing surfaces. These works reflect an ongoing dialogue between body, land, and mark-making, shaped by his experience as both an immigrant and an attentive observer of place.
Materiality plays a central role in Francesco’s practice. Alongside pristine cotton papers, he frequently works with found and archival materials, such as maps, documents, notebooks, and discarded papers, valuing their existing histories and traces of lived experience. His more recent works expand printmaking into mixed media, fabric, thread, and sculptural forms, challenging conventional boundaries of the medium. Through projects such as Surroundings and Ink and Thread, including a three-year collaboration with DADAA, Francesco explores connection, community, and the physical act of leaving a mark.
Francesco is the founder of Margaret River Printmaking, an international studio and platform that supports printmaking education, artist residencies, retreats, and collaborative projects across Australia, Italy, and the United States. Through workshops, symposiums, and immersive retreats, he is committed to fostering a global printmaking community grounded in curiosity, discipline, and authenticity.
As an educator, Francesco believes that teaching is not about instruction alone, but about sharing passion, encouraging experimentation, and cultivating disciplined curiosity. His practice and pedagogy are united by a commitment to thoughtful making and to printmaking as a living, evolving language rooted in both tradition and lived experience.
Francesco Geronazzo Printmaking Portfolio
Join Francesco Geronazzo and discover salt and sugar aquatint etching as an expressive, sustainable printmaking process that combines experimentation and creative exploration using techniques that can be practised confidently in your own home studio.
Sustainable Salt & Sugar Aquatint Etching with Francesco Geronazzo
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Salt and sugar aquatint are contemporary intaglio techniques that create rich tonal effects, expressive textures, and painterly surfaces on metal plates. By using simple materials such as salt and sugar, artists can achieve beautifully organic patterns and subtle tonal variations that are etched into the plate before being printed. These techniques offer a highly creative alternative to traditional aquatint while producing distinctive, atmospheric prints.
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This course covers the complete process of creating salt and sugar aquatint etchings, from preparing the plate through to printing the final artwork. Francesco demonstrates plate preparation, image creation, etching, inking, wiping, printing, and finishing techniques, while showing how these methods can be combined with traditional line etching to expand your creative possibilities.
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Unlike traditional aquatint, which typically relies on rosin to create tonal areas, salt and sugar aquatint use readily available materials to produce expressive textures and painterly effects. These techniques encourage greater experimentation and spontaneity while offering artists an accessible and more sustainable approach to creating richly detailed intaglio prints.
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Yes. The course is suitable for artists with little or no previous etching experience, as well as experienced printmakers looking to expand their technical and creative repertoire. Francesco explains each stage clearly and progressively, making the course accessible while also offering valuable insights for more advanced printmakers.
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Yes. One of the strengths of these techniques is that they can be adapted for use in a well-equipped home studio. Francesco shares practical methods that use accessible materials and more sustainable approaches, allowing artists to continue developing their printmaking practice outside a traditional workshop environment.
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The course is entirely self-paced, allowing you to work through the lessons whenever it suits your schedule. You can pause, revisit, and repeat demonstrations as often as you like, giving you the flexibility to practise each technique thoroughly before moving on.
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These techniques make use of simple, readily available materials such as salt and sugar while encouraging approaches that reduce reliance on some traditional printmaking materials. Throughout the course, Francesco shares practical methods that support a more environmentally conscious printmaking practice without compromising artistic quality or creative expression.
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By the end of the course, you will have the knowledge and confidence to create expressive salt and sugar aquatint etchings from start to finish. You will understand how to achieve rich tonal effects and organic textures, combine these techniques with other intaglio processes, and confidently continue exploring printmaking in your own home studio.
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Absolutely. Salt and sugar aquatint work exceptionally well alongside traditional line etching, drypoint, and other intaglio techniques. Combining these methods enables artists to build greater depth, texture, and tonal complexity, opening up a wide range of expressive possibilities within a single print.