Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Record highs today

it was 83 degrees here......and I believe it!!! A perfect day to work on the back deck experimenting with copper etching.

So, who says you need ferric chloride? Yes, it does a great job, but it was $35.00 for the bottle. Peroxide and Hydrochloric Acid mixed together will do the same thing. I did 3 plates today, 2 were done with FC and 1 with the other mix. See if you can tell the difference!

This first one was done using stamps from A Stamp of Excellence.



Tried to photo this so you could see how it etches away and leaves the inked portions the original thickness so they are raised or embossed on the copper



Using Lucy McGoo stamps from After Midnight Stamps:



And Lucy stamps with seashells from Pugnacious



Just so you know, with either method, you are working with extremely dangerous chemicals. Work outside only. Do not do this inside. And wear gloves and a mask at all times. Even when you are sanding. Use only real copper, not copper painted metal. Read all the labels and warnings on the products. Be careful! Don't even try this if there are kids around! You can see here how it will eat the edge of the copper away where I failed to ink the back good enough.



So, the next step is to patina these. I'm loving the colors on this one. We'll see how they turn out tomorrow.



I will be doing a lot more of these as there are so many different possibilities. I'd like to try the watercolor painting technique after etching.....and do an overnight etch and see if I could get the embossed detail thick enough to emboss into paper using the Wizard....endless possibilities.

2 comments:

Diane said...

Very nice! I only paid $8.00 for 16 oz of ferric chloride at Radio Shack. I understand Frye's sells it for even less than that. Beautiful work. Thanks for sharing.

Anonymous said...

These are great Jen - Lucy has come out terrific. She certainly looks good etched!
Neet