My practice – part 3

Here is the block after its overnight etch...

... and cleaned off. Notice how much of the stopout has been eaten away by the caustic etch. For me, one of the pleasures of this process is the way that the end result is partly out of my control.

A closer look at the cleaned block. The next stage is to proof it, and see what will print.

Proofing in black means you get to see clearly what marks you have.

Here's the inked up block.

And here is the first proof. So, from this I can start to plan the other blocks in more detail.

For instance, I am pleased with the broken edge where the buildings and river meet, but I may need to reinforce this separation later. I can also visualise how the river might begin to look if I layer 3 or 4 blocks with similar marks.

With the first one in mind, I can begin to paint stopout onto the second block. This one only has sky and water, with no architecture in it. I have roughly traced and drawn where the buildings are on the key block, so I see where the painted marks need to be.