Solarplate etching of a pencil drawing

03 May 2011

Inspired by how well the solarplate etching technique has reproduced my pen and ink drawings, I tried it with one of my pencil drawings.

This is the original drawing:


I strengthened the contrast and added some flat tone by using Photoshop.


And then etched this version onto the photopolymer plate.


This version is printed in dark blue (ultramarine plus a bit of black), so the contrast isn't quite as strong as it could be if I'd printed it in black; but nonetheless, it's very interesting to see how much detail and line quality has been carried over from the orginal drawing to the print.

More to come...