Etch all shades of the color pretty deeply in any of the stippled or
aquatint styles. After this, coat the stone with gum solution, that it
shall take no color in these depressions. Clean off the chemical ink or
the ground with oil of turpentine, and prepare the whole plate if it has
not been prepared already on its surface. Then coat it with red gum
surface, and into this inscribe all those lines that are to remain
black. Then the color is rubbed-in and the stone cleansed so that it
will be white everywhere except in the engraved parts. When it is
inked-in now, it can take color there only, and the other depressions
(namely the various shades of the color) will remain white because they
have been prepared. Now it is necessary only to coat each part with the
desired water color and it will be denser, and therefore darker,
wherever there are more and greater depressions.
II
SIMULTANEOUS CHEMICAL AND MECHANICAL PRINTING
When a pen drawing is so constituted that the various lines are close
together and there is no white space on it that is greater than at most
one half inch in diameter, it will permit printing in a purely
mechanical way without being prepared. It need merely be etched into
all the relief possible without under-eating the lines. All that is
needed then is a color-board or a so-called dauber, made as follows:--
A thin board of soft wood, about eight inches long and six inches wide,
is planed down till it is not more than one line in thickness. Glue on
it a piece of fine cloth or felt almost as large as it. Over this glue
another board, of the same area as the first, but one quarter inch
thick. It must be very well-dried wood, and must be made very true with
the plane, or better still, by rubbing on a perfectly level stone with
sand. This latter board is provided with a handle; and when all is dry
this dauber is ground off true again with fine sand and oil on a stone.
Lay the printing-color on this utensil very gently and uniformly with a
leather ball. Tap and pat the stone, which has first been cleaned with
oil of turpentine over its whole surface, very carefully with the
appliance, holding it as horizontal as possible and taking great pains
to distribute the color evenly.
As compared with chemical printing, this process in itself has no
advantages, but can be united with it and thus used to print three
colors from one plate. This is shown by the following
EXAMPLE
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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