Copper Aquatint

A print shop has been given this photograph as the subject for a copper aquatint. Bite the image into the plate with acid so the darks are a field of tiny pits, then wipe warm brown-black ink into them and pull one impression on heavy rag paper. The person is still that person, in the same clothes and stance. Faces hold in the ink; they are not redrawn as a different sitter. Fine highlights are the colour of the paper showing through. The plate mark embosses a shallow rectangle around the picture. The paper is slightly foxed at one margin. Ink sits thicker in the shadows and breaks on the tooth of the sheet. This is a workshop proof of that exact photograph, not a sepia filter, not a pencil drawing, and not a postage stamp.