- Ybor city resident, John Costin, creates complex, life-sized images of birds in his 120-year-old studio.

Using an etching process that dates back hundreds of years, his artwork captures the beauty and nuance of these natural wonders.

(light music) - One question I get a lot from people when they see my work, they look at it and say, "Well, why do you do etchings?

Why not do a painting and do reproductions?

Why not do that?"

And I tell 'em, "They're not the same."

There's certain visual qualities that etchings have that these other processes don't have.

- Most people do not know what etchings are and what is involved.

So I just say, "Well, he's kind of like a modern day Audubon."

What Audubon did with plates, with birds, John makes his bird's life size.

They're all hand painted.

They're extremely, extremely detailed because he goes out on the field and he studies feather patterns, leg patterns, like for example, the sandhill crane that he just did, he spent 40 hours drawing those legs.

So I would tell people, "If you want something very detailed and bright and beautiful that you need to go see my husband work."

- My favorite thing about the work that John does is being able to just see him created.

It is incredible to me to watch something start as an idea and just watch that idea come to life.

It is watching something magnificent unfold.

It's like this magical side of art that I get to bear witness to.

(light music) - We're in Ybor City.

This is sort of the outskirts of Ybor.

This building was constructed probably about 1904, 1905, and this building was a dry goods store.

In the late seventies, I was an electrician and I had a great career there if I wanted to go that direction.

But I always had an interest in art and went to school at USF.

And while I was there, one of the classes I'd taken was printmaking.

- I met John 24 years ago and it still blows me away the things that this man can do that I've never seen anybody else do.

And when other printmakers see his work, they are overwhelmed that he's using, you know, large plates, making birds life size, multiple plates, and hand coloring them as well.

So I'm his biggest fan I believe.

- I like large-scale etchings.

I like the intensity of 'em, something you rarely see.

Most artists that do etchings, they're of this scale, small, small scale because they're so intense to work on, all the technical things that you have to do to do a plate that size, to work large is much more challenging.

- One of the most interesting things that I have learned looking here and being a watercolor artist and assistant is color theory.

The way that John knows color so intricately blows me away.

Just on top of all of his other skills.

The colors that he uses, down to the shades of black are so specific so that they really create a depth, a dimension to these birds that brings them to life, that really makes them pop off of the paper.

- I look at a lot of these pieces as a scientific experiment where you have the series of variables and they all have to be completed just right to get the right result.

So I document everything.

That way somebody can come behind me that I've worked with and trained and can achieve the same results as long as they adhere to my notes that I take.

(upbeat music) - With every bird that we work on, John and Janet share their knowledge and interesting things about them.

Most of them are life size, so I get to see these birds up close in his etchings.

So my knowledge of birds has really grown.

- My interest in birds started when I was young.

Our family lived in Blue Ridge, Georgia.

We had a farm there.

Because of that, I was exposed to a lot of different birds in the area and that piqued my interest.

When we moved to Florida, I had the chance to see a lot of these larger species of birds that created an even stronger interest in birds, seeing these upfront, close, and personal, - It's kind of weird to be emotional about birds because before I met John, you know, I didn't know.

I did not know much about birds.

- I feel that when you look at a piece with just one subject like that, you empathize with it more so.

You're not just a distant observer, you're there in that bird space.

It takes on a character, a personality.

One of my goals is for the viewer to connect with that subject matter, and that's one of the reasons why I just used one bird.

I'm hoping that maybe indirectly from them connecting with that bird, they might have more of a care about the environment they live in.

(light music) - It amazes me.

Some people will say, "Oh, well, is it just a print?"

'Cause they see that it's signed and numbered.

No, it's a handmade piece of art.

There's nothing done with a camera or a computer.

It's all handmade.

It's fine art and it's amazing.

(light music) - In addition to my own work, I've been collecting antique prints for 30 years.

I have an interest in how other naturalists approach that.

You know, why did they do it?

How did they do it?

And I feel that I want to add to that with my work.

That's one of my goals, knowing all these things that had happened before me and then adding my own thumbprint on there, a contemporary view.

(light music) - [Commentator] To learn more, visit costingraphics.com.