My practice – part 4

 Here is the second block after an overnight etch.

Something I forgot to mention earlier is how I remove the thick stopout from the block. I use a cleaning chemical called greenwash and a scrubbing brush. Alternatively, you can use white spirit. It takes several goes to get rid of the stopout, and eventually I resort to scrapping the last stubborn islands off with a stanley knife blade.

The cleaned second block.

 Here's a close up of some of the texture.

And here is the second block proof.

I have scanned in both proofs and manipulated then in photoshop to give me some idea of how they interact with each other, how they look etc. This helps me decide if I want to edit the blocks themselves in some way, maybe cut parts away or re-etch parts. Also I can use this to help me plan the next block.