Let the Beauty of what you Love be what you Do...
~Rumi

Friday, April 16, 2010

Photo Etching~ Getting to the Good Stuff!

I know, judging by the title for this post, you're all expecting to see great results here! Ha! Tricked ya! :) But we did begin learning how to etch actual photographs this week. Once I have had more practice, I can see where maybe I'd have some pretty cool results... but for now... well, you know. When I was back visiting family recently, I borrowed a few slides from my dad from "back in the old days." We had this cool old '58 VW bus... and mom & dad used to pack up us kids & the dogs & we'd go on these mini-adventures. Probably where I got my wandering tendencies & adventurous spirit! :) Anyhow, I thought it would be fun to etch some of these old memories... so I had the slides transferred to digital, put the image into photoshop, deleted all the color info, increased the contrast & printed it onto a transparency... and, well, you know the rest!


Since this is the first time I've ever done this, I cut myself some major slack here. Because even though there are places where I hadn't got the film applied properly (dark spots/air bubbles) and I don't know what happened to the front of the van (will find out monday)... I can actually tell what it is!


It's a start!!!

4 comments:

Lisa (Mountain Photog) said...

Great blog! And I love that photo! Interesting technique. And it fits the subject perfectly. :) You just print it onto a transparency on your ink jet printer?

Thanks again for stopping by my blog!

Barb said...

Becky! I really like the Hippie Bus/Family Van... Can you imagine how much your Family will enjoy this etching? Such good memories go with it.

becky said...

Lisa~ you take your image, print it on a laser printer (something about the type of toner..) then you place the transparency over a copper plate that has a light sensitive film applied, then expose the plate, (similar to the old b&w technique,) then it's placed in a developing solution to remove areas of the film, then it is etched in a ferric chloride solution, cleaned.... and then, finally you can print it!!!! A lot of "thens" to get this beat up image you see here!!! :)

Barb~ they'll enjoy it a lot better once I get better at this technique!! :)

Lisa (Mountain Photog) said...

Neat! It may be a labor intensive process but the end result is worth it, I think. I really like it. :)