Behind the Scenes - Etching Sweet Baby

Line Etching

This is one of the first steps - etching the line drawing. The zinc plate is blocked out with the acid resistant hard ground. A sharp tool is used to draw the image into the ground. The plate is then put in an acid bath which will carve lines into the zinc where it is exposed.

Creating Tonal Values

This plate (below) is almost to the final stage, where lighter areas are blocked out by an acid resistant coating (a hard ground) for the final acid bath which will darken the exposed areas. In this case, the exposed areas are aquatinted - they were sprinkled evenly with a resin powder that when melted onto the plate, allows only some of the acid to get through, creating a texture on the surface of zinc plate that will hold the ink. (Note: At this stage, I already had aquatinted and lightly etched the pants - which are lighter than the darker tones).

First Proof

The first proof above was taken before the tonal values were created through aquatint.