The Mathematical Bridge - Finished

I have finished the engraving of the Mathematical Bridge that crosses the River Cam in Cambridge.

I stopped engraving a little before completion and there is a good reason for this - it is a lot easier to remove wood than to put it back. The latter is not exactly impossible but is, of course, something that I want to avoid. Here is the block , inked and fixed in the bed of the press:


My preference for proofing sooner rather than later usually results in the first "state" being fairly "flat". I normally take four proofs of each state - here are the first ones on the drying rack:


This is a good time to take a break, pour a nice strong cup of tea, and look at the image with a critical eye. I work through the print systematically, noting all of the changes and developments that I wish to make.


Next, I wipe the ink from the block with a clean soft cloth and make the adjustments that I felt were necessary. In this case, I wanted a lot more light in the reflections in the foreground, so I recut the lines:


After this I took a proof of the second state and planned further revisions. I worked through six states before I was happy. The last ones only made tiny changes which were not really very noticeable but I would not have been happy if I hadn't made them. I was pleased with the final image:

Its been a while since I followed the story of an engraving on my blog and so here is an offer for my readers only.

I am selling five of my artist's proofs in my website shop at a much reduced price of GBP25.00, including shipping. This is about half the selling price for the edition. Please note that these are artist's proofs - identical to the selling edition but marked "A/P" instead of the edition number.
They are for sale HERE as Item "Blog Special No. 1"