Dry Techniques
- Drypoint
- Engraving
- Mezzotint and scraping
- Removing marks from a plate
- Power tools
Etching is predominantly based on the use of indirect processes and their mastery can seem somewhat daunting to artists used to expressing themselves through more direct means. The use of mordants and varnishes is, however, only one strand of intaglio printmaking. Direct or dry mark making plays an equally important part. Historically, dry techniques such as drypoint, engraving and mezzotint preceded the invention of etching but all involve the penetration of a hard surface so that it can be printed as an intaglio print. Any of these purely mechanical techniques can be used by themselves or in combination with each other or with etch-techniques to increase the pictorial possibilities.
A shiny new metal plate is a sensitive base which will register any mechanical activity taking place on it. Anything that in any way marks, scores or scratches the plate surface can be included in the repertoire of dry mark-making. Sharp pointed objects such as needles or nails will score grooves and raise burrs in the metal and are most useful for linear work. Areas of tone and texture can be produced by dragging abrasive materials such as sandpaper, steel wool or a wire brush across the surface.
Apart from the more improvised equipment, there are a large number of tools that have been developed specifically for
intaglio printmaking purposes. Some of these, like the hand held burin, are as ancient as the art of embellishing objects with incised designs; while others, such as electrically powered engraving tools are more recent developments.
Drypoint
In drypoint the artist draws straight onto the metal plate with a drypoint needle. It is a very expressive technique producing lines which can be vigorous, lively or delicate depending on the pressure exerted. Drypoint lines are much less uniform than engraved lines and can be used on their own or in conjunction with a contrasting approach. Rembrandt appreciated the beauty of using drypoint to accentuate other intaglio work – using it to enhance dark tonal areas or to define an outline, whilst Rodin was one of the first artists to use pure drypoint to sculpt powerful imagery on the plate.
When a drypoint needle digs into a plate it throws up a sharp edge called a burr rather than producing a deep groove. It is this burr that holds most of the printing ink and accounts for the unique velvety or blurred character of the drypoint line. It is essential to use a very sharp and durable needle, preferably made from tempered steel. An instrument made from mild steel will quickly become blunt and will not produce the desired burr, merely scratch the plate surface. For the same reason, the needle should be held fairly upright rather than angled like a pencil. A superior but expensive alternative is a diamond-tipped drypoint needle. A fair amount of pressure needs to be exerted whilst drawing as marks made with less pressure will be finer and less velvety. The burr can be removed using a scraper if a line with the quality of an engraving is sought, or an entire area of drypoint work can be completely removed by sanding the plate surface.
Drypoint can be used on all metals suitable for intaglio printmaking and also works on Perspex. The main factors to be considered in the choice of material are whether the plate needs to be editioned and to what extent the metal resists the drypoint needle. Zinc and aluminum plates are easily penetrated and give the option to draw more fluid curves. However, these metals are so soft that only a limited amount of prints can be made before the burr is flattened under the pressure of repeated inking and printing. A drypoint composition drawn on copper can be expected to last for at least ten prints, or for fifty or more from plates that have been steel faced. If steel itself is used, editioning should not normally be a problem but the metal presents greater resistance to the needle and produces more angular strokes.
With acrylic based etch techniques it is usually best to apply drypoint (and other mechanical work) after all etching has been completed so as not to damage the raised burr during plate preparation processes and in the corrosive bath. A plate that is to be printed directly from an acrylic surface such as a smooth hard ground or a photopolymer film, is equally suitedto dry techniques as a metal surface.
Drypoint can be very useful for putting finishing touches to a print. Dark areas of an etched plate may turn out to be a little too faint; some of the etched lines could do to be more prominent; or perhaps the composition requires some unifying element. Rather than having to apply a new ground and re-etch the plate, all these kinds of alterations can be made quickly on the plate with a drypoint needle; without even having to clean the plate after printing.
Engraving
Despite its decline in popular use, engraving retains a presence through the bank notes and postage stamps which are still hand engraved by highly skilled craftsmen. These familiar images show that the quintessential character of engraving is the clear-cut line. The wedge shape of the intaglio groove produced by a burin is very similar to that produced by etching into a hard ground with ferric chloride. While etched work can be executed quite freely and by anybody who can draw, the proper use of engraving tools is not only much more time consuming but also demands a greater level of experience and proficiency.
Engraving was developed very specifically as a means of reproducing images, and the best way to learn about the qualities (and limitations) of this definitive linear medium is by visiting print archives. Despite the arduous nature of the medium and its somewhat old-fashioned image, a small number of artists have succeeded in using engraving in a contemporary manner. However, the majority of artists who work in intaglio tend to make only occasional use of engraving, as an aid or supplement to other methods.
Burin engraving works best on hammered copper plates or on polished plates of mild steel. Plates with a strong rolling structure are less suitable because they resist the movement of the burin. Lines are not actually drawn as in drypoint but are cut out of the plate by carefully pushing the shaped tip of the burin through the metal surface. Burins come in various shapes and sizes; those with the lozenge-shaped tip are the most versatile. Usually, the plate is placed on a flat surface and held down firmly with one hand. The handle of the burin should rest in the palm of the free hand while the shaft of the burin is clasped between the thumb and the first two fingers close to the tip of the burin. It takes some practice to find the right angle to allow the instrument to push a continuous length of metal out of the plate. If the burin is held too steeply it will stab into the metal and get stuck; and if it is held at too shallow an angle it will slip off, often unexpectedly- hence the importance of keeping the hand which holds the plate away from the direction of the burin.
By varying the pressure and the angle of the burin as well as by using different sized tools, a range of lines – from the very delicate through to the most forceful – can be produced. A modulated line that swells from a hairs width to a broad and deep one in a single continuous movement is one of the unique characteristics of engraving. The plate needs to be rotated in order to maintain the pushing action that can create very curvaceous linework and to this end can be placed on a raised base such as a stuffed leather bag. During engraving a spiral of displaced metal is excavated and needs to be cut off at its end with a scraping tool. As in drypoint, it is crucial that the artist resharpen his tools at regular intervals; this is done by carefully rotating (without rocking) the lozenge-shaped face on the sharpening stone. Engraved lines can be controlled more easily if the image is predrawn with light drypoint lines which can then be deepened and turned into proper intaglio grooves by the burin. Similarly, the burin can also be used to deepen etched or drypointed lines on a plate.
A variety of electric engraving tools provide a modern addition to the engraver’s toolkit. Artists interested in the more linear
qualities of intaglio may find these small hand-held tools a fast and fluid means of incising the plate. The tool is essentially a miniature power drill which can be fitted with a selection of engraving, grinding and polishing drill-bits. These are capable of cutting continuous lines of varying widths and also of making dotted or juddering lines and textures which would not be possible otherwise. Electric engraving tools are particularly useful for engraving linear elements into an existing intaglio structure – a task less easy to perform with a burin.
Mezzotint and scraping
Loosely translated, the term mezzotint means half-tone. The technique was invented as a way to emulate the depth and tonality found in paintings of the time in a mass-produced intaglio medium. Mezzotint works in the opposite way to conventional methods. Rather than regarding a white sheet of paper or the blank metal plate as the light background onto which dark marks are made, the mezzotint image is actually shaped towards the light from a completely dark background.
Before work on the actual composition can begin the entire surface of the metal plate has to be roughened with a mezzotint rocker. This tool consists of a wooden stem with a semicircular steel chisel, the tip of which is cut into fine teeth. The mezzotint tool is held upright on the plate and then rocked to and fro repeatedly while exerting firm pressure. If the rocker is operated correctly, it gradually moves across the plate surface leaving a trail of tiny spikes and burrs in its wake.
This process has to be repeated many times and in different directions until the plate has been roughened so much that it prints a totally uniform black. For plates of a reasonable size this can only be achieved by laboriously rocking for many hours. A task that demands a truly determined attitude! There is, however, a faster way to manually create a mezzotint structure, a structure which still has the richness that only conventional mezzotint allowed. Start by incising bundles of vigorous lines and cross-hatching on the plate using a drypoint needle. A sturdy ruler can be used as a guide to speed up this process. Once the plate has been covered in a dense mesh of linear burrs, work the surface with the mezzotint rocker.
This action will chop up the straight drypoint lines into a random covering of tiny spikes and burrs which, when printed, will appear as a lively black yet textured surface of the utmost density. An effect resembling mezzotint can be achieved with much greater ease by etching a very dense aquatint and using this as the dark background to work from. Arguably, a thoroughly rocked place surface will print the softest and densest blacks possible in intaglio printmaking, but a carefully laid aquatint can come very close to it. The latest and fastest method of producing a quasi-mezzotint involves the use of a photopolymer plate that has been roughened by one or more exposures to a random dot screen. After developing and light hardening, the plate can be shaped mechanically just like a mezzotint plate.
Once a plate has been roughened by any one of the methods mentioned previously, the image is created by scraping and burnishing lighter areas into it. If the scraping tool is handled with the greatest care the mezzotint burrs will be reduced by varying degrees so that perfectly continuous tones appear on the finished print. The scraping tool can, however, leave visible scratch marks and for this reason, is often used in conjunction with abrasive or polishing tools (such as a burnishing tool, different grades of sandpaper, steel wool etc.). For very detailed work, scrapers (commonly a triangular steel body with three sharp edges and a pointed tip) of different shapes and sizes are available. Like most mechanical intaglio tools,these will need to be sharpened regularly. Those areas that are to be highlighted as whites need to be burnished after sufficient scraping has been carried out.
Burnishers – smooth metal implements with a straight or curved tip – are rubbed across the plate surface in various directions using a firm pressure until the treated metal area looks smooth and shiny. A few drops of bicycle or vegetable oil should be added to help lubricate this process. Burnished areas on a plate produce a very bright or even totally white area on the corresponding print.
The usefulness of the mezzotint rocker need not be confined to mezzotint. Rocking tools and other related implements such as roulettes which also create a burr, can be used to add tonality or rich textured effects to plates that have been etched or drypointed. The roulette is a small kind of roller with sharp spikes that can be freely wheeled around the plate to leave dotted marks which on the print will closely resemble the soft quality of pencil or crayon work. As with most mechanical tools, it is available in a number of different shapes and sizes and with a varying coarseness. A similar tool is the moulette, the tip of which is a small rotating sphere which creates a more random pattern than the roulette. All these tools can either be used to carry out direct dry work on the metal plate or into a hard ground.
Removing marks from a plate
It is a common misconception about intaglio printmaking that once an image has been incised or etched into a plate there is no way of changing or removing those marks. Admittedly, it is not as easy as erasing a pencil mark from a piece of paper, but a considerable number of techniques and tools are at the etchers disposal to achieve this end. The scraping and burnishing methods mentioned previously can be used on any kind of etched, drypointed or engraved plate to either lighten lines/areas or remove them completely. In this situation, the scraping tool is used more forcefully to repeatedly remove shavings of metal from the plate surface. The softness of the metal will determine how long it takes to completely remove a line or texture. This task is quickly done on zinc but takes longest on steel. Once all visible traces of the mark are erased, the burnishing tool is used to flatten and polish the metal surface. Lubricating oil, sandpaper, steel wool and emery paper can all be used to aid the process. In Rembrandt’s time, when copper was an even more precious commodity than it is now, entire plates were often scraped and burnished after the completion of an edition in order to reclaim the plate for the next project. The option to mechanically delete or reduce certain parts of an image is essential in intaglio printmaking, and ultimately only the thickness of the metal limits the degree to which this can be done.
Power tools
Today it makes sense to make use of modern tools that can carry out the work of scraping and burnishing previously done by manual means. One of the best gadgets for the fast removal of metal from an existing intaglio plate is a random orbit sander. The vigorous action of these circular sanders require some basic safety measures. The plate should be secured to the workbench with G-clamps before sanding and even if the tool has built in dust extraction it is advisable to wear gloves and goggles. Any flammable materials should be kept well away from the work area as vigorous sanding can produce sparks. Most sanders allow for the attachment of different grades of sand paper, allowing the artist to proceed from a coarse working of the surface through to a more delicate polishing with fine grit. On a hard metal plate such as steel, even a medium grit sandpaper (e.g. 250 grit) will eventually produce a high polish; while softer metals usually require a very fine grit (from 400 – 1000 grit) for polishing tasks. The slightly roughened surfaces required in some acrylic resist etching techniques, such as hard ground and intaglio type, can also be polished up with this equipment if a plate tone is to be avoided on the print. Plates can also be rubbed with metal polish which, after it is dry, can be buffed to a high sheen using a power drill fitted with a soft buffing disc.
Today, many artists also use a Dremel tool to expand their vocabulary of direct mechanical marks. The wide range of available attachments allow for all kinds of fluid marks to be incised into a plate with ease and speed. Goggles must be worn when using this kind of tool as the cutting process involves the emission of small shards of metal.
There are many more electric power tools out their – it is down to the artist to appropriate them for use in intaglio printmaking!