Edition of 10
14 x 17 inches (including border)
zinc plate etching with aquatint, printed on Rives BFK 280g archival paper
hand drawn, inked, and printed by me
signed and numbered by me, as well
This limited edition print will be made available on June 12 at 12:00 pm PST. For questions or interest, feel free to email me (see my contact page).

Zinc plate etching on Rives BFK 280g archival paper, 9 x 12 inches (14 x 17 in. with border)

Here’s a bit of the etching process, just to give a clear idea of what this thing actually is. Forgive my lack of technical terminology.

Drawing onto the plate with a metal etching needle. There’s a thin layer of “hardground” on the zinc plate, which the drawing implement basically scrapes off to make the image.

Acid bath. Dipping the plate in acid eats away at the exposed metal, allowing for grooves to form, in which the ink for the printing will sit. The longer it sits in acid, the more pronounced the line/value.

This is the first version of the etch, before aquatinting.

After applying aquatint, which is essentially melted granular plastic beads on the metal plate, which is a whole process in itself, I applied “stop-out” (a tar-like substance), over all the spots I wanted to remain white. Then I dipped it in acid fo… — After applying aquatint, which is essentially melted granular plastic beads on the metal plate, which is a whole process in itself, I applied “stop-out” (a tar-like substance), over all the spots I wanted to remain white. Then I dipped it in acid for a few seconds, making everything that remained exposed a little bit darker. Then I covered everything that I wanted to remain that slightly darker color in more “stop-out”, dipped in acid, then repeated this process for each subsequent change in value, until I got to black, at which point most of the plate is covered in the stuff.