Work in progress - Lermontov's 'The Demon'

I'm almost finished an interesting new commission and can now release this image from it.

A new translation of Mikhail Lermontov's epic poem The Demon will be published this year, translated from the original Russian text in to Scots.  The new publication will coincide with Lermontov's bicentenary.

I was asked to produce black and white illustrations to accompany the text.  Sadly I can't share all the illustrations just now, but here's one that I've been permitted to let loose on the blog for now...

Character sketches - 

Work in progress

A couple of weeks ago I took some printed proofs of this etching below.  The plate is now going to get aquatinted, which will give the image different tonalities and a bit more depth.  However this also means that I'll never be able to get the same line drawing from the plate again.

Ten limited edition prints of the line drawing version have been made, as I sometimes find that the original image looks better than the aquatinted version.  Below is a photo of the guide that I painted for myself of the tonal areas, using one of the first printed proofs of the image:

To be continued....