Etched Slate Sign

Hi Crafty Friends!

I'm back from a road trip to Arizona where I saw many amazing sights like the Grand Canyon, the Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert.  Among the many fascinating things I saw were petroglyphs.  These are ancient drawings carved into the rock in many places around the world.  These petroglyphs inspired the slate sign I etched here.

I received some new materials from etchall® for this blog hop and I was eager to try them out.  One item was a etchall® resist gel to use with etchall® etching crème.

After studying the petroglyphs, I chose a simple sun as a motif on a slate sign.  I drew my own image with a circle and rays.

Here it is drawn with pencil on the slate.  You can erase whatever pencil marks that are left later.

I used the resist gel and went over the pencil lines.

Then, I let it dry until it was clear.  Using a toothpick, I filled the ring and rays with etching crème.

After fifteen minutes, I rinsed off the etching crème.  Ordinarily, I'd scrape off the etching crème and return it to the bottle, since it is re-useable.  But, in this case, I used very little crème.  Once the crème was rinsed off, I pulled of the resist gel. 

Here's the result:

I liked the look of the primitive sun on the rough slate, but I thought it needed a little more.  So, I added some smaller petroglyph motifs on both sides.

I drew the motifs with pencil, then used a toothpick dipped into the etchall® etching crème and went over the lines.  After 15 minutes, I rinsed them quickly under running water.

Here's the final result of my etched slate sign:

Etched Slate Sign

Etched Slate Sign

Here it is again showing the great etchall® product used in this project.  I hope you'll try it because it is fun and easy to use with easy clean-up and very little odor.  This is the first time I have used the etchall® resist gel, and I really like how it works on a rough, uneven surface like the slate.  I have tried stencils before on slate and the resist gel works much better.

Take a look at all the other designer's etched projects for this blog hop.  You can find them all on the Designer Crafts Connection Blog.