Feast your eyes. This is around 5 hours work, I’m guessing. A constellation of barely-visible dots, marking key points of intersection, checked and cross-checked and re-cross-checked. This is how they begin. It is very slow work.
Doing them is actually physically painful for me at this stage particularly, because the measuring has to be so precise that in order to try to hold my outstretched hand as steady as I can while setting the calipers, I usually stop breathing. The step towards the easel is usually punctuated by a gasp for breath. 2 or 3 hours of this and I’m pretty worn out.
Tomorrow, cross-check all of the points further, then get the base contour in and the first-stage rough. Then on to refining. And hopefully, by 30 or 40 hours in, I’ll have a virtually indistinguishable copy.
What is the size of the enlargement? I need to make more copies but I don’t know what size is best. Any suggestions?
Khanh, I always enlarge the plate to 18″x24″, and then crop that size (if necessary) if the drawing on the plate is smaller than the full size of the sheet. In this case, the hand on the plate measures about 8″ high and 7″ wide.
Thanks Steve! I also tried to rate your youtube movie but couldn’t figure out how:(