Copper Crow

Jan ’22: I was asked to make an 8×12″ copper plate of a crow. Making the digital stencil had its challenges, but the project worked out in the end.

The first little challenge is adjusting the photograph colour, brightness, and contrast settings to enhance the details in the image. Without the adjustments, I would not be able to make much more than a silhouette from the photo. After adjustments, I make a design using a few different shades of grey. Each shade is separated into its own layer.

The next challenge is making a monochromatic design. See, the cutting machine software seems to lump all colours into one shape and does not trace cut lines around every detail. Making a monochromatic design means that neighbouring colours would alternate between white and black so that every boundary line is kept. The trouble is that there are too many “triple points” in this design, where 3 different colours meet and alternating black and white colours will not work.

It was not optimal, but the solution I came up with was to make a pencil line version of the design. The reason why this was a bit of a problem was because the cutting machine software will make cut lines on both sides of the pencil lines, effectively making the cutting machine go over each line twice. In the cutting machine software, I deleted as many double lines as I could before getting the machine to cut the stencil.

With a workable stencil, I can move on to making the plate. I transfer the vinyl to the copper and mask-off the edges with painter’s tape to protect from painting later.

The first colour to apply is black spray paint, followed by the background, dark brown, light brown, and then the bare copper highlights. I apply some caulking to fill in some lost details before weeding for the black colour then apply 2 coats of paint.

For each subsequent colour, I weed the vinyl stencil, apply chemicals, let it “cook” in the chamber, rinse/dry, and seal with clear coat. It is only necessary to weed and seal the bare copper highlights; no further chemical reactions.

With the image of the crow etched on the copper, I attach the hanging hardware and rubber pads to the back and sign my work.

I learned an alternative (albeit slightly time-consuming) approach to make a stencil design that the cutting machine software will interpret properly. I will continue to learn about the different software programs I use and how I can become more efficient in producing an accurate stencil from a reference photo.