Printmaking Basics: Etching

So, you want to come up and see my etchings? If you take nothing else away from experiments in etching, at least you can lay claim to this tried and true pick-up line that used to make your grandma blush. The smarmy cliché was long part of popular culture when Alfred Hitchcock preserved it for time immemorial in his movie Blackmail in 1929. But the obvious meaning only scratches the surface in this prurient double entendre. How fitting...

Etching is, more or less, the reverse of block printing. Instead of creating an image where the positive space left uncarved is meant to be inked, etching uses negative recesses to create an image where the ink will sit. Tools scratch the surface of a metal plate (choice of copper or zinc) leaving the indent of a positive image. However, remember that the rule of a reversed (mirrored) image still holds.

Then, like the block print, you are going to ink the surface of your plate. But give the brayer a break for the etching -- the delicate metal plates will scratch easily. Instead, you'll apply ink with a soft rag (tartan works), scraping it into the etched grooves. When the negative space seems loaded with ink, use a piece of clean material -- yellow pages or soft newspaper do the job -- to remove ink from the rest of the untouched plate surface, polishing it clean.

The big catch is that etching requires a special press to transfer the image. It's comprised of two rollers which the plate passes between: the one underneath moves the bed of the clothing press where the plate's sitting, the one on top produces a downward pressure. Top your plate with paper. It's usually dampened, first, with water; the paper expands when wet, and after it's blotted dry (and before it goes on the plate) it's a virtual empty sack, hungry for ink. The plate and moist paper are buffered from the rollers with two pieces of felt.These help to absorb the press' extreme pressure. After all is run through the press, it's the moment of unveiling (no exhibitionism or double entendre here...). Just pull away the paper to reveal your print on the finished page.

NOTE: It's best to use a triangular scraping tool or file to bevel the edges of your plate to avoid cutting the felt press blankets or your paper. These tools can also be used to cut out unwanted mistakes, leveling scratches.

AND FOR YOUR MAIN PLATE?

You have your choice of copper or zinc...

• Copper - Is excellent because it can etch finer details and holds a line better in the acid bath; it's moderately more expensive.
• Zinc - Is often used in a school setting because of the modest price, but the plates sometimes experience underbiting in the acid bath (where the acid continues to eat away at an unscratched surface, blurring the detail between fine lines).

HALLOWED GROUNDS

You may choose to apply grounds to your plate to allow for more manipulation (in the spirit, perhaps, of that aforementioned cliché). Know the difference between three kinds:

• Hard Ground, is, basically, a hard acid resist or varnish that covers both the front and back of a plate onto which you etch your image before it enters the acid bath.
• Soft Ground, in contrast, can be used in lieu of hard ground and covered with some textured material -- gauze, laces, special papers -- to etch an overall pattern. You can also do a drawing on regular paper at it sits on top of a plate covered in soft ground, and when the paper is peeled away, the depression of your drawing will remain.
• Stop-Out Ground, Finally, stop-out ground helps you preserve relative detail and line strength. It may seem obvious that deeper etched lines will be darker, as they are able to carry more ink. But they also require more time in the acid bath to materialize, and this extended time can result in underbiting for finer lines. Stop-out ground is applied over portions of your plate that need no more exposure to acid, while others still do. For example, you can take your plate out of the bath after a minute, preserve details with stop-out ground, and return the plate to the bath for more work.

Stop-Out grounds are bright red to distinguish them from dark brown hard and soft backgrounds.

INK

You'll find etching ink to be significantly stiffer than block ink. Modifying the ink by heating the plate or adding softener (so it will scrape off easier) is a nice trick. There are several brand name softeners -- known as reducers. Miracle Gel^TM and Easy Wipe^TM are two trusted stand-bys. They all accomplish pretty much the same thing.