Hand sketched very roughly and the penned over with black ink. The bird illustration was changed as the client preferred horses.

workings out for some of the 6 tones of acid etching. The illustration was hand vectored ready for cutting by plotter.
there are a total of 4 panels x2 at 27inches by 22inches x1 at 4ft x 3ft and a smaller panel at 20inches by 17inches.
This is why I vectored the design to speed things up and avoid all the hand cutting plus the computer can cut alott smaller detail and much quicker than me.
I made a drawing showing me where to start my brilliant cutting ,once the cutting was finished and polished I matched up the areas for acid etching the first white tone


This shows the resist covering the glass cutting and exposing the areas for white acid. a combination of hand cutting and computer was used as it was impossible for
exact positioning of the resist plus it is tradition here to give the brilliant cutting a white acid etched line around the cuts.
The tone was toped off for 8 minutes ready for the first acid tone. A top off is when the acid is cut back before any work is done. If I silver straight onto the first tone of pure white it would look like dirty sandblasting and not have the correct shade for a silvered panel .A top off effect would not be needed for glass which goes into pub windows which lets light through.