INTAGLIO 101 Maury 2015

Overview of the Intaglio Processes Etching and Drypoint are some of the more common techniques of the Intaglio printmaking process. In each case, grooves are made on a sheet of metal. These grooves or pits are then filled with ink, and the surface of the plate is wiped clean. When an image is printed on an etching press, the image is transferred from the plate to a piece of paper. Many identical prints can be pulled from a single plate, forming an edition.

Drypoint Drypoint is very basic. The artist simply scratches the image onto the metal plate with the etching needle or stylus (copper works well because it is a softer metal than zinc or other metals often used for intaglio). No acid is involved. It can be difficult to control the needle on the slick metal surface. The metal forms a ridge along one side of the scratched lines as the artist draws. This gives a fuzzy look to the lines when the plate is printed. Going through the press many times, the pressure of the roller on the press forces the ridgeback down into the grooves. The result is that the image gets paler and paler.

Etching Etching uses a mordant (such as an acid or other corrosive liquid) to create deep lines in the sheet of metal The artist applies a mordant resistant ground to the plate in a thin, even layer, and then draws the image on the plate. The stylus or etching needle removes the ground wherever the artist has drawn, exposing the metal. When the plate is immersed in the mordant, the metal is eaten away and the lines deepen. Lines etched for a long time are deeper and hold more ink than lines etched for a short time. This means that they print darker onto the paper. There are different kinds of grounds, both liquid and solid. They can give different looks to the line, or be used with different mordants.

The Mordant Ferric chloride (a corrosive salt with no fumes) is a common mordant for etching copper plates The bath of mordant is in a vertical etching tank to minimize evaporation and to best handle the way the ferric chloride eats away the copper.

Printing The paper for the print is made of cotton fibers, which give it enough strength to be forced down onto the plate under the pressure of the press, producing a rich image. First the paper is soaked in water, to give it flexibility. A tarlatan (starched cheesecloth) is used to carefully wipe the surface of the plate with ink, while leaving ink in all the etched areas. When the inking is complete, the image is clearly visible on the plate.

All intaglio prints are printed on an etching press. The press has a bed on which the inked plate is placed, face up. Excess water is removed from the paper, and the damp sheet is placed face down on the plate. The plate is rolled through the press, at thousands of pounds of pressure per square inch. After printing, the print is air-dried or press dried under light pressure to flatten. For each successive print the entire inking process has to be repeated.

1 For this assignment you will need:

• Copper plate (various sizes available) • Paper towels (if using hard ground) • Duct tape (if using hard ground) • Sponge brush (if using hard ground) • Newsprint • Printing paper (variable based on plate and a generous border size) • Acetate or mylar for printing registration

HOW TO: Many metals can be using in the intaglio process. Traditionally, copper is used, but also zinc and steel. You can use roofing copper, which is relatively inexpensive or engraver’s copper, which is thicker and comes with a mirror finish and a mordant-resistant background. We use the engraver’s copper.

Preparing the Plate

1. Attach plate to a level surface with felt scraps and clamps to keep the plate in place. Bevel all of the sides of the plate to a 30-45° angle and round the corners slightly. Start with a scraper tool to remover the majority of the material, then a fine metal file to smooth the edge somewhat. Lastly, smooth the edges with a burnishing tool and 3-in-1 oil. Make sure edges are completely smooth or they will collect ink. *Unbeveled edges can tear your printing paper and damage the press! 2. Polish the plate (as needed- this is optional, you may like the additional plate tone or slight marks of an unpolished plate) by buffing with Putz Pomade and a felt scrap or soft cloth until shiny. Rinse well with warm water. You can also smooth out minor scratches with your burnishing tool (and 3-in1 oil). For a really mirror like surface and no plate tone, you can rub your plate with 3-in-1oil (WITH THE GRAIN) and a very fine steel wool, and finish with a 2000 grit sandpaper. 3. Clean (degrease) the plate with a paste of ammonia and whiting powder (or you can also use Bon Ami or Comet). Wear gloves. Use a soft cotton rag to gently clean the plate until shiny. Rinse with water, the water should bead up on the surface and you should not see any finger prints or oily marks. 4. De-oxidize the plate (for good hard ground and aquatint adhesion) with the vinegar + salt solution. Move this around for a few seconds with your hands. 5. Rinse the plate well with water and dry immediately to prevent rusting/oxidation.

*Be careful not to touch the plate directly while the plate is naked if you will be using a hard ground or before printing. Oils from your hands can cause the hard ground not to adhere to the plate. You may need to degrease the plate multiple times during the process.

Drawing the image (for Drypoint)

1. Remember to REVERSE the image, or it will print the wrong way. This not only means that any writing or numbers will be back to front, but the visual flow of the piece will be different, and often not what you had envisioned. You can draw directly on to the plate with a Sharpie or a grease pencil. These marks can be removed before printing. You can also use carbon transfer paper to draw the image onto the plate or draw your image on a piece of tracing paper with a soft pencil and run it through the press.

2 2. Use a sharp (diamond or carbide tipped) etching needle to manually scratch the image into the metal plate. The force used with the etching needle will dictate the thickness or thinness of the lines as it raises a metal burr which will hold the majority of the ink in the image. For fine lines, press lightly while drawing and harder for darker lines. You can go over the lines several times to get the desired effect. 3. Unwanted lines can be scraped away and burnished. 4. When finished with the drawing, remove any marks from the drawing process with ammonia.

Drawing the image (for etched images)

A. Applying Liquid Hard Ground

1. Place your plate on several sheets of newsprint and heat on the hot plate at 400° until hot. 2. Remove plate (and newsprint) from hotplate and move to center table. Place a small object underneath to slightly elevate the plate (be sure it won't melt!). 3. Pour the liquid hard ground over the plate. Be generous enough so you can cover the plate on the first pour. It dries quickly and can get thick easily, which will crack and flake. 4. Smooth out the hard ground with a clean and dry sponge brush. It should be thin but not too thin, and not too thick or it will crack during drawing. 5. Dry horizontally.

B. Applying Ball Hard Ground

1. Place your plate on several sheets of newsprint and heat on the hot plate at 400° until hot. 2. Remove plate (and newsprint) from hotplate and move to center table. 3. Press the ball of hard ground onto the plate in several spots until melted. 4. Smooth out the hard ground with a brayer. It should be thin but not too thin, and not too thick or it will crack during drawing.

C. Drawing through Liquid Hard Ground

1. When the plate is thoroughly dry, make your drawing with an etching needle. You do not need much pressure to scratch though the hard ground. You don’t want to actually scratch the plate, so be careful with our pressure. 2. Remember to reverse the image, so that it will appear correctly when printed. You can use transfer paper to trace an image in reverse onto the plate or draw directly (and lightly!) onto the hard ground with a china marker or sharpie.

D. Before Etching the Plate

1. Cover the entire backside of your plate with duct tape and trim so the tape is flush with the edges of the plate. Slightly overlap the strips of duct tape to prevent the etching solution from getting to (and etching) the back of the plate. If careful, you can use both sides of your plate. 2. Double two LONG strips of duct tape (attached to the back of the plate) to create a means to pull the plate out of the vertical etching tank. Make sure it is long enough to reach out of the large etching tank.

3 ETCHING THE INTAGLIO PLATE:

1. Be sure to leave the hard ground on your plate when etching, and have a long strip of tape securely attached to the back of your plate (long enough to extend out of the vertical etching tank).

2. PLUG IN THE ETCHING TANK FOR AT LEAST 30 MINUTES BEFORE PLACING YOUR PLATE INSIDE TO ETCH. This is very important as the etching solution needs to be circulated thoroughly or the etch will not turn out well.

3. Lower your plate in the etching solution and secure tape to side of tank with a clip or clamp. Make sure image is facing into tank. DO NOT LET PLATE FALL INTO TANK. It is too deep to reach the bottom and can ruin the solution of left in the tank too long. ***NEVER REACH INTO FERRIC TANK WITHOUT GLOVES. The ferric chloride is a corrosive solution and can burn and irritate the skin, as well as stain it.

4. Leave plate in ferric solution for desired time. For longer times (more than 10 min), etch the plate in several stages (5 min each and rinse and dry plate between). The longer the plate remains in the solution, the deeper the lines become and the darker they will print.

5. Remove plate from ferric solution and rinse well in adjoining sink and remove all tape from plate.

6. If finished etching the plate completely, use soy solv (non-toxic) or mineral spirits and a paper towel to remove the hard ground on the front and backside of plate. If continuing to etch, DO NOT remove hardground, apply stop out (red liquid), let dry, and etch again as needed. Stop out is removed with rubbing alcohol.

7. Degrease the plate with ammonia and whiting before printing. Check the image and beveled edges to make sure they are acceptable. Use a burnishing tool if you need to smooth the edges or burnish out any marks in the image you don’t want to print.

PRINTING THE INTAGLIO PLATE:

1. Decide on the size paper you will be using. Generally, allow for generous margins (2”- 3” or more) around the edge of the plate, usually equal on the top and sides, and approximately 1/2" greater on the bottom margin. But you can certainly play with the placement of the image and the space it occupies.

2. Measure paper for your edition and tear or cut to size. Initial the back of your paper with pencil so you know which is yours in the water bath!

3. Create a template by tracing around your plate on a piece of clear acetate, showing which way is "up", and tracing around where your printing paper will be laid down in relation to the plate. If you want accuracy this will involve measuring with a ruler. The template should be significantly larger than your printing paper.

4. Soak your printing paper according to paper needs. This can be done the day of printing or in advance (up to 3-4 days) and placed in a tightly sealed plastic bag.

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5. Ink the plate up making sure your ink is Etching ink. Use a plastic ink spreader to smear the ink across the plate in all directions, being careful to fill all etched areas. You can warm the plate first (NOT HOT, just 30 seconds at 150°) first to make the ink spread easier, but be careful not to wipe too much ink away.

6. Take a “dirty” tarlatan of the appropriate color and make a large rounded wad and gently wipe the plate in a circular fashion. Continue with a semi-clean tarlatan, and then newsprint/phone book page until the surface of the plate is fairly clean. Wipe the edges of the plate with a felt scrap so they don’t print.

7. Place the template you made earlier on the center of the bed of the press. Put the plate on it, face up. Take your blotted paper and carefully place it over the plate according to the markings you have made on your template. Cover the printing paper with another, larger, sheet of clean newsprint.

8. Position the blankets over the template, plate and paper:

roller

Pusher blanket (woven) Forming blanket (woven) Sizing absorber

Newsprint

Printing paper Registration template Plate

Bed of Press

9. Crank the handle of the press so the roller passes over the plate and paper completely, taking care not to stop over the plate itself.

10. Pull back the blankets and remove your print, picking it up slowly from one corner, and place on racks or in the homosote pile to dry.

11. If you will not be printing another print that day, clean the ink off your plate with Soy Solv and a paper towel and degrease it with Comet or Bon Ami. Clean up ink, spatulas, ink spreader, glass, etc with Soy Solv but be sure to degrease with Simple Green as a final step.

5 Cleaning Hand Inking Rollers and Brayers:

1. Remove excess ink on a piece of newsprint, page of a phone book, or scrap paper by rolling roller or brayer over paper until almost all of the ink has been removed 2. Remove any remaining ink with vegetable oil (NOT SOY SOLV). Finish cleaning with a few drops of Dawn Dish Soap and a soft rag or paper towel. Rinse roller well to remove any soapy residue. 3. DRY ROLLER COMPLETELY with soft paper towel or rag. Excess water will ruin the rubber and rust handles if not completely removed before the next step. 4. Store roller back on shelf. Do not let roller rest directly on shelf, it will ruin roller. Make sure it is propped up or resting on its “ legs”.

*DO NOT clean with simple green. It will destroy the rubber!

*Be careful when caring and washing rollers that you do not drop them. Dropping them will create dents that will affect their usefulness.

AQUATINT An aquatint is an etching with tonal passages that resemble a wash. An aquatint employs acid resistant particles to create an irregular dot pattern on the plate. The acid resistant particles can be applied using spray paint, acrylic resistant ground sprayed with an airbrush, or with rosin--applied with a rosin dust box or by hand--then fused to the plate prior to etching. How To- Rosin Box:

You will need to wear proper protective gear when using the Rosin box. There are respirators on the shelf nearby or bring your own dust mask. Rosin is dangerous if inhaled over time.

1. Degrease the plate with ammonia and whiting and dry the plate well. 2. Turn the hot plate on so it has time to warm to 250°. 3. Place the plate on a piece of cardboard slightly larger that the plate itself. The cardboard makes it easy to remove the plate from the rosin box without disturbing the freshly applied dust. 4. Check the rosin box to be certain no one has left a plate lingering inside. 5 . Rotate the box to create a copious dust cloud. Knock on the outside of the box while rotating it. 6. Bring the box to rest at the bottom of the rotation and begin timing the wait interval immediately. 7. Timing is critical in applying rosin to a plate. Typically a number of sample tests are performed to determine rosin application time intervals. Try beginning by creating the cloud, waiting 30 seconds, inserting the plate in the box, then leaving the plate in the box for 60 seconds. If the application is too dense, increase the time

prior to inserting the plate to 60 seconds. Continue to experiment with various intervals of waiting to insert the plate and leaving the plate in the box to achieve optimal rosin coverage.

8. Following the wait interval, carefully open the door on the rosin box, insert the plate, (support the plate on the cardboard template). Close the door gently and hold shut. 9. CAREFULLY open the door on the rosin box. Gently lift the cardboard template supporting the etching plate and remove the plate from the box without hitting or disturbing the rosin. 10. Set the plate aside then close and latch the door on the rosin box. Sweep up any rosin that may have escaped from the box and deposit it in the trash.

6 11. Place the plate on a sheet of newspaper on the hot plate. 12. Rosin is pale yellow prior to fusing, and turns transparent when it reaches melting temperature. Rosin not adequately adhered will come off the plate when etching. Rosin over melted spreads and clumps together creating a coarse aquatint. 13. Allow the plate to cool. 14. Block out any areas of the plate you wish to preserve as is prior to etching the aquatint areas. Allow the ground to dry.

Tips Regarding Dot Coverage and Etching of an Aquatint:

1. A 50% coverage of whatever material used for creating the dot pattern is ideal. The advantage of a rosin aquatint is the refined quality of the aquatint due to the minute size of the rosin dust particle. Too dense coverage with rosin. When fused, the rosin particles will melt together and largely prevent the plate from etching. 2. An inadequate application of dot particles cannot hold up under acid exposure. When etched the aquatint will have pit areas larger than the land areas. When printed the aquatint will look weak due to inadequate tooth for holding ink. 3. A brief exposure to the acid will yield a light tone. A longer acid exposure will yield a darker tone. However, there is a point, when the plate left too long in the acid, will loose it's tone instead of getting darker. Uneven muddy tones are the result of over exposing the aquatint to the acid.

4. Aquatint tonal values are achieved by doubling exposure time in the acid. When etching a test exposure plate begin with 15 seconds, remove it from the acid bath, rise well, block out a small strip then repeat this process adding 30 seconds, + 1 minute, + 2 minutes, + 4 minutes, etc.

5. When the etching of the aquatint is complete: • remove the plate from the bath allowing the ferric chloride to drip into the bath • rinse the front and back of the plate well and dry the plate • remove the hard ground protecting any areas of the plate • dissolve particles of rosin with denatured alcohol

NOTE : Like drypoint, a plate etched with aquatint should be handled carefully. Do not scrub or abrade the aquatint when cleaning the plate as this could reduce the plate's tooth and weaken the print.

Aquatint tones can be lightened by using a burnishing tool to reduce the tooth and thereby creating a range of tones. To remove the aquatint on heavily aquatinted areas shave the area with the scraper first, then polish it with the burnisher afterwards.

How To- Spray Paint:

You will need to wear proper protective gear when spray painting. 1. Degrease the plate with ammonia and whiting and dry the plate well. 2. Spray as even coat of spray paint over the plate as possible. Try for 50% coverage.

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