Artist Daw Htay Htay believes that each of her creations is invaluable.

IN life, unexpected events sometimes occur that completely change the way we live.

In some instances these events will make us, while at other times they will break us.

And sometimes luck intervenes to sway the course of events.

For up-and-coming artist Daw Htay Htay, 52, both luck and fate played their part in changing her life when she accidentally discovered a new way of making art.

Daw Htay Htay makes copper etchings using acid — it's a technique she picked up from watching her son, an electrical engineer, make electronic circuits on printed circuit board.

And it here that luck stepped in — had her son not been an engineer, she would never have stumbled onto the method by which she creates her art.

“I was watching my son use acid to remove the unwanted copper from the circuit boards he was making when I suddenly wondered whether I could make a painting using the same technique,” she said.

While the technique is hardly new — artists abroad also use acid etching in their works — Daw Htay Htay’s works differ because she does not use expensive copper sheets. Instead, she uses circuit boards.

To make an etching, she sketches whatever design she wants on the board using a protective pen.

Then, she dips the board in a specially prepared acid bath to remove the unwanted copper, leaving the plastic base and her sketch behind. However, this is only the first stage of the process.

“I can’t start painting immediately after using the acid because the copper swells up. I have to wait until the copper turns a lovely reddish-colour.

“When it reaches the colour that I want, I rub sandpaper on the design,” she said. Htay Htay added that this is an important step because otherwise the copper will reflect light differently from the rest of the painting and detract from the desired effect.

“Getting the light aspects right is essential because it supports the picture and I’ve learned to be very careful when sandpapering the copper,” she said, adding that she is learning something new every time she makes a painting.

“The weakest point in this kind of etching is in corrections — it isn’t possible to correct any mistakes.

“When I started making these, I was too afraid that the copper parts would be damaged by the acid and I got so worried that I fell ill. Now I just concentrate very hard from the moment I finish the sketch to make sure I don’t damage the design,” she said.

When it comes to painting the board, Daw Htay Htay said she usually prefers black acrylic paint because it’s difficult to match other colours with the copper.
Each painting, she said, takes two to three months to complete.

For Daw Htay Htay painting was a lifetime dream she was unable to achieve until she was about 40-years-old, when she needed to teach her children to paint for a school art competition.

“When I was helping them to learn, I made a few oil paintings and learned the techniques you need to make them.”

Many years and much practice later, she stumbled onto the idea of acid etching.

And while she has only been doing her etchings for a little over two years, her work has been exhibited four times this year already. But Htay Htay says she’s not satisfied with that and wants to hold a solo exhibition to express her thoughts through her creations.