Both methods are better for very coarse work than for fine designs.
Etching-ground, dissolved in oil of turpentine, or consisting simply of
tallow and put on the stone very uniformly with a cotton ball, is much
better, and produces an effect similar to wash drawing. However, it is
better suited to the lighter parts of a design, because it will bear
long and powerful etching only if one hits exactly the proper
proportions between ground and etching fluid. Therefore, it is well,
after the first tones have been etched and printed, to spatter
cautiously with chemical ink all those parts that are to be darker than
half-tones. Thus these dots will prepare the design so well at those
places that they can withstand the most powerful etching.
V
AQUATINT THROUGH CRAYON GROUND
This is a sort of middle process between aquatint and the scraped style.
It has the advantage of great speediness.
A stone that has been grained for crayon work is coated with the black
or red gum ground described for the engraved method, but without
previous etching, which would not do harm but is unnecessary. The
outlines are drawn in with the needle very lightly, because they are to
serve only to make the design visible. Those lines, however, that are
not to disappear in the aquatint tone, but are to show plainly, must be
cut as deeply as necessary for greater or lesser blackness. Then the
stone is rubbed with color and washed with water as in the engraved
method.
When it is entirely clean and dry, all the design will be black and the
stone white. The design must be examined carefully, and the various
gradations of shading should be separated in the mind into about eight
leading classes, of which four are numbered upwards to the lightest
parts, and four numbered downwards to the darkest. Everything in the
category of the four dark parts now is worked strongly with chemical
crayon. The purpose is to mass a number of evenly separated points over
these parts of the design that shall withstand the etching fluid like an
aquatint ground, between which the etching fluid may eat the stone and
thus form a coarser grain than could be attained merely by rough
grinding.
Then the four lighter parts must be coated with chemical ink. The very
lightest parts, and all that is to remain white, must be left white on
the plate and neither touched with crayon or ink.
Then the stone is etched for the first time. Following this pour clean
water over it and let it dry. Then of the four dark parts the lightest
are coated with chemical ink, and when it is dry the etching fluid is
applied again. After washing and drying, the next lighter portions of
the dark sections are coated, and so on till at last the very darkest
shadows have been coated. Then a clean brush is dipped into gum solution
and everything that should remain white is painted.
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