Hi everyone! This week I am back with another acid etching. This one was done on a bigger plate that was 6×4 inches, and this is the most detailed one I’ve done yet! For my subject this time, I decided to do a picture of my friend Jordan’s cat, to give to her as a birthday present at the end of the month because she just recently lost her this year. Below is the starting picture, along with what it looked like after I brought it into photoshop, and then what it looked like after I traced it onto the plate before etching. I reversed the image so that when it printed it looked like the photo.

It was honestly very time consuming to trace it onto the plate and then etch it with the needle and go over every little detail. But it was worth it and it ended up coming out really good! For my printing process, I started with black ink but for some reason the first print never comes out good for me. So then next class I tried a brown ink and was playing with the lights and darks and experimenting with how much to wipe off. This is how they came out after I printed a few:

Overall I am really satisfied with how these first few prints came out. I think I am going to experiment some more with the highlights on the cat in comparison to the darker floor. I may even try some other colored ink, but I just want to get it as perfect as I can for a gift for Jordan! I am really enjoying this acid etching process, it is very simple and it produces great prints!

Thanks for reading!

Ella