Come and see our etchings!

Last week during my school's Arts Festival, the Biology department (where I work) and the Art department got together so that our pupils could do some etching from cells.  The results were superb.  Here's how they did it:

Firstly they selected a pre-prepared microscope slide and did some drawings:

Then, they scratched their design onto an etching plate.  This is a piece of steel covered in black stop-out varnish:

These where then immersed in nitric acid.  The acid 'eats away' the metal in the places where the varnish has been scratched off:

 Then we inked the plates (very messy) and used them to create prints:

 Here are some of the fabulous prints that our pupils created:

The pupils had a brilliant time and their inner artists were definitely brought out.  Using slides as a basis for the prints focussed their minds and allowed them to explore the world in microscopic detail.  Time off-timetable to do things like this is priceless.  It allows us to see our pupils in a different light and lets our minds wander, allowing our brains to recuperate during such a frenetic term.  Our stress levels definitely dropped and we all learnt something new.

I can't wait until Arts Festival part II in the summer term