TITLE of Project: My World Intaglio OBJECTIVES: The student Will Be Able To: 1. understand and use intaglio printmaking MEDIUM: intaglio etching printmaking vocabulary & techniques. 2. understand that intaglio prints are printing from a BIG IDEA: storytelling backwards image. 3. create textured artwork through drawing using ESSENTIAL QUESTION: If books were illustrated space and balance. using prints, how can your print tell a story? 4. use pen & ink techniques for intaglio printing. 5. tell a story through art, persuading the viewer to MATERIALS: etching press & blankets, pencils, the artist’s point of view. newsprint, printmaking paper, white chalk, needle 6. draw the image accurately and fill the entire stylus, zinc etching plates 4X6”, asphalt-bitumen picture plane. for ground, ferric chloride as the etch, intaglio ink, 7. place marks on the plate following the contours of solvent, flat black spray paint for mezzotint, rasp, the shape. burnisher, matboard scraps, towels, rough brown 8. use all intaglio printmaking procedures carefully & paper towels, tubs for etch and paper soak accurately. RELATED HISTORIC 9. use the use the crosshatching, hatching, & ARTWORK: mezzotint techniques correctly. 10. produce a full range of values from dark to light The Good Samaritan with smooth transitions. By Rembrandt van Rijn, 11. use negative as well as positive shapes effectively 1633, Baroque Art, in their prints. Intaglio/Etching 12. produce 2 neat prints for the final grade. 13. formulate and share responses to classmates' artwork. STUDIO PROCEDURES: TEKS: All levels of Art, Grades K-12, require 1. Do several pencil sketches onto 4 X 6” drawing printmaking in the TEKS. It is located in Section 2: paper using simple lines with no shading. Choose one Creative expression. The student communicates of these drawings to use as the basis for an etching. ideas through original artworks using a variety of 2. Prepare the 4 X 6” zinc plate with the asphalt- media with appropriate skills. The student bitumin as a ground, painting it on in smooth side-to- expresses thoughts and ideas creatively while side strokes of a soft brush and including the edges of challenging the imagination, fostering reflective the plate. Let the plate dry thoroughly. thinking, and developing disciplined effort and 3. Trace your drawing onto the back of your paper progressive problem-solving skills. using a light table or lit window so your image will be SAMPLE OF ARTWORK: right side up after printing (especially important if there are letters or words in the image). Chalk the Sample right side of your drawing and then trace the image Artwork: from the “wrong side” of your paper onto the Trees at grounded zinc plate. Use a colored ballpoint pen for Marshall by your tracing so you can see where you’ve been. 4. Using the stylus (etching needle), draw your image Mat Percy, by scratching through the surface of the ground to (student at expose the metal beneath – not much pressure is Marshall HS, needed. To make “shading,” use hatching and 2006) crosshatching. Stippling can be done with sharp DISCUSSION: Go through history and rationale marks. for Intaglio Printmaking. Students could watch a 5. Holding onto the ends of a nylon cord underneath video on the entire intaglio process including the plate or masking tape fashioned into a tab on the engraving, etching, aquatint, drypoint: back of the plate, place the plate carefully in the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNKn4PORGBI ferric chloride bath for approximately 5 minutes. The tab or string should be sticking out of the tub so you can grab the edges to life the plate out of the bath. Try not to get your fingers into the ferric chloride. It 14. Lift the blankets and peal the print off the metal will not hurt your fingers but it will stain them. Ferric plate carefully. Place the print on the drying rack. chloride also permanently stains your clothes so wear 15. Repeat the process steps 9 through 14 to produce a protective apron. Use the cord or tape tabs to pull more prints. the plate out. Check the depth of the bite. 16. To make a new edition you can push the original 6. Lightly spray solvent (could be odorless paint line drawing into a mezzotint (aquatint). Paint ground thinner) onto the plate and wipe off the ground. onto some of your design surfaces using a watercolor 7. Very carefully use a rasp or metal file to round the brush in the areas you do not want altered by the edges of the plate. This keeps the moist printmaking ferric chloride. Spray a thin layer of black spray paint paper from being cut when run through the press. onto the remaining surface. Heavy spray paint for 8. If needed, use a burnisher to gently smooth out lighter areas – light spray paint for darker areas. Bite any stray marks or imperfections in the plate that with the ferric chloride. After you remove the ground were made by the etch. and spray paint, you will have a mezzotint surface 9. Using a scrap of matboard and using moderate that will be darker. You can also do more drawing pressure, drag and press etching ink onto the surface with the stylus using a drypoint engraving method. of the zinc plate. Scrape excess ink off the plate with 17. Evaluate your artwork using the Self-Evaluation the matboard and put that excess ink back into the Performance Assessment Rubric. Photograph your ink container. prints and place in digital portfolio. Take part in class 10. Using a 12 X 12” piece of tarlatan or piece of critique. rough brown paper towel, wipe the rest of the excess 18. Sign all prints using the correct print signing ink off the surface of the plate using gentle circular method shown below: (sign them using a pencil strokes. Rotate the plate around as you work. and the guide here. Continue until all ink is off of the surface and only The “fraction” part remaining in the etched grooves of the plate. Make on the left sure all ink is off the edges of the plate. There should communicates the remain a “tone” of the ink on the plate. limit of the edition of 11. Soak a 6 X 8” piece of printmaking paper in water prints. This sample for 30 seconds or spray paper with mist of water from 1/10 means this is a spray bottle. With very clean hands, place wet the first print out of paper on towels to blot excess water. The countertop an edition of 10 good needs to stay clean. Be careful not to hold paper by prints. the corners because the corners will tear off. 12. While the etching bed is mostly extended out from the press cylinders with the blankets still under CLEAN UP: the cylinder, place the inked plate ink side up onto 1. Put away all printmaking supplies. the registration template on the surface of the 2. Put prints on the drying rack. etching bed about 18” from the cylinders. The 3. Make sure press is in order. template should be marked with a Sharpie showing 4. Clean ink off of counters and all surfaces. the outline of the plate size in the center and the RELATES TO OTHER CONTENT AREAS: outline for the paper size centered outside of that Math: measuring; engineering involved in a (this will keep the prints “registered”). Use a heavy detailed process paper for the template. Place the moist paper on top of the plate guided by the template. Cover the Science, Physics: an understanding of PSI plate/moist paper with a scrap piece of clean paper. pressure Cover the paper with the thinnest blanket, then cover Science, Chemistry: the understanding of with the other blankets finishing with the thickest chemical compounds like ferrous chloride, etc. blanket on top. Make sure all blankets are smooth. VOCABULARY: 13. Using the geared levers, slowly move the bed Intaglio – carved, etched, incised, or engraved into a through the cylinders to the other side. The press hard plate so that it is below the surface; then a print should be set at pressure 16 because the zinc plate is is made from this plate, leaving a raised impression a 16 gauge plate. You might have to test your press to Etching – an intaglio process where the incised design make sure this is the best pressure. is made by acid eating into the surface of a metal plate instead of the incised design being engraved Etching Press – intaglio printing press consisting of 2 large cylinders and a sliding bed. The bottom cylinder supports the bed, on which the inked plate and the paper are placed, while the top cylinder presses the paper against the plate. Blankets – pressed or woven wool felts used on an etching press to apply a cushioning pressure to the paper Ground – an oil-based acid-resistant substance painted onto the surface of a metal plate during an etching printmaking process. The ground protects the non-image areas from the action of the acid. Stylus – a sharp metal etching needle used to scratch through the acid-resistant ground to expose the metal underneath. Burnisher – an oval-shaped tool used for polishing and smoothing the plate Tarlatan – sheer cotton fabric, heavily sized and used from rag wiping of intaglio plates Hatching - to shade or draw with two sets of parallel lines placed next to each other Crosshatching - to shade or draw with two sets of parallel lines that cross each other Mezzotint or Aquatint – the roughened surface of an intaglio plate created using spray paint or the back- and-forth rocking of a serrated cutting tool called a rocker.