Death on the Bus, etching

I have learned a lot in Cameron's etching class. As well as my own faltering attempts between classes. By doing it wrong, I learned:

• For dark areas it is better to do more layers of cross-hatching than it is to do finer hatching.
• Differing depths of bite can be used in combination to good effect
• ALWAYS use your own bottle of Nitric acid & don't ever let ANYONE else use it! (the difference in strength, from what I saw, can vary by as much as 75%. If you're grabbing a bottle at random from the print shop you don't know how depleted, or strong, it is.)
• Now that I have done my first steel plate etching I have one reason at least, to favour copper. Mistakes, or gradations, can be introduced with a burnisher & scraper more easily on the softer metal. The steel also has a stronger plate tone, since it isn't as smooth as copper, which can be an advantage or disadvantage, depending on your aim. I realised that, for instance, if you were to burnish only the highlights, you would get spots that were more white (paper coloured) than the general background tone. That is to say, you would have the option of creating a three tone print. Dark in the etched areas. Medium background tone. Light in the burnished areas.

The first proof of my first steel plate was promising.

When pulling the second proof, however, it suffered foul bite throughout when I left it in acid that was stronger than I expected. I tried to bring back some of the contrast with several hours of wrist-breaking scraping, burnishing & drypoint, & I think, the general effect is not bad--if only it weren't so dark overall that it doesn't invite examination. I did a pen drawing of this subject, too (pictured in the post beneath this one) from my imagination. I like the subject well enough that I will try one more etching on a new plate.

Finally finished my third treatment of 'Death on the Bus', etching on copper. 2nd plate, 5th proof

Here they are together. The original photo:

The pen drawing:

And the painting on copper: