Kaleidoscope Etch Art Creations: Butterflies and More

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Caridad de una muger” (A Woman’s Charity, 1810-1820), Francisco Goya. Etching, lavis, burin, and burnisher on wove paper. The traditional soft ground, requiring solvents for removal from the plate, is replaced with water-based relief printing ink. The ink receives impressions like traditional soft ground, resists the ferric chloride etchant, yet can be cleaned up with warm water and either soda ash solution or ammonia. Spit-biting is a process whereby the printmaker will apply acid to a plate with a brush in certain areas of the plate. The plate may be aquatinted for this purpose or exposed directly to the acid. The process is known as "spit"-biting due to the use of saliva once used as a medium to dilute the acid, although gum arabic or water are now commonly used. US 5112453,Behr, Omri&Behr, Marion,"Method and apparatus for producing etched plates for graphic printing",published 1992-05-12 With that in mind, we’ve put together this beginner’s introduction to etching, showing how artistic etchings are made. Our etching guide is illustrated by some visual aids we recorded while visiting Amsterdam’s remarkable Rembrandt House Museum a few years ago.

Billard, Jules B. (1989). "Jess D. Jennings, "Across an Arctic Bridge" ". The World of the American Indian, A volume in the Story of Man Library. Washington D.C.: National Geographic Society. p.47. ISBN 0870447998. It was a complex and involved process, but it did allow artists to craft and mass-produce prints of staggering clarity and quality. Intaglio describes any printmaking technique in which the image is produced by incising into the printing plate – the incised line or area holds the ink and creates the image A waxy acid-resist, known as a ground, is applied to a metal plate, most often copper or zinc but steel plate is another medium with different qualities. There are two common types of ground: hard ground and soft ground.

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Traditional intaglio printmaking methods, their health hazards, new non-toxic substitutes". Greenart.info. 2013-03-14 . Retrieved 2015-08-11. Garcon et Dormeuse a la Chandelle” (1934), Pablo Picasso. From The Suite Vollard, Etching on Montval laid paper.

Engraving is a printmaking technique that involves making incisions into a metal plate which retain the ink and form the printed image Famous etching pictures: Peasant Family 1647 by Adriaen Jansz. van Ostade; Caprichos series 1799, The Colossus 1818 by Francisco Goya; Net of Religion 1794, Illustrations to the Ballads of William Haley 1805 by William Blake; Virgin in the Tree, Two Men Meet, Each Believing the Other to Be of Higher Rank 1903 by Paul Klee; Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the Heart series 1989 Albín Brunovský. After the ground has hardened the artist "smokes" the plate, classically with 3 beeswax tapers, applying the flame to the plate to darken the ground and make it easier to see what parts of the plate are exposed. Smoking not only darkens the plate but adds a small amount of wax. Afterwards the artist uses a sharp tool to scratch into the ground, exposing the metal. Drypoint is a printmaking process in which a design is drawn on a plate with a sharp, pointed needle-like instrument Additional impressions can be created by re-inking, cleaning, and putting the plate through the printing press again.Art of the first cities: the third millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2003. pp.395–396. The Artist's Studio: What Is Etching?" (PDF). Cairnsregionalgallery.com.au. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-09-06 . Retrieved 2015-08-12. For aquatinting a printmaker will often use a test strip of metal about a centimetre to three centimetres wide. The strip will be dipped into the acid for a specific number of minutes or seconds. The metal strip will then be removed and the acid washed off with water. Part of the strip will be covered in ground and then the strip is redipped into the acid and the process repeated. The ground will then be removed from the strip and the strip inked up and printed. This will show the printmaker the different degrees or depths of the etch, and therefore the strength of the ink color, based upon how long the plate is left in the acid. Copper engraving is the oldest technique and was very popular during the Renaissance. As the name suggests, it involves carving an image directly onto a copper plate. It could be quite difficult and involved a certain degree of metal-working skill. Growing concerns about the health effects of acids and solvents [19] [20] led to the development of less toxic etching methods [21] in the late 20th century. An early innovation was the use of floor wax as a hard ground for coating the plate. Others, such as printmakers Mark Zaffron and Keith Howard, developed systems using acrylic polymers as a ground and ferric chloride for etching. The polymers are removed with sodium carbonate (washing soda) solution, rather than solvents. When used for etching, ferric chloride does not produce a corrosive gas, as acids do, thus eliminating another danger of traditional etching.

The second way to apply hard ground is by liquid hard ground. This comes in a can and is applied with a brush upon the plate to be etched. Exposed to air the hard ground will harden. Some printmakers use When buying partner items like this one, your contract of sale will be with our Range Plus Partner instead of us. Etching has often been combined with other intaglio techniques such as engraving (e.g., Rembrandt) or aquatint (e.g., Francisco Goya). The plate is then completely submerged in a solution that eats away at the exposed metal. ferric chloride may be used for etching copper or zinc plates, whereas nitric acid may be used for etching zinc or steel plates. Typical solutions are 1 part FeCl 3 to 1 part water and 1 part nitric to 3 parts water. The strength of the acid determines the speed of the etching process. Behr, Marion; Behr, Omri (1993), "Etching and Tone Creation Using Low-Voltage Anodic Electrolysis", Leonardo, 26 (#1): 53–, doi: 10.2307/1575781, JSTOR 1575781, S2CID 100716855

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Enter a world of magic and wonder with Etch Art: Mythical Worlds! Create a magnificent dragon poster, a beautiful unicorn photo frame, a stunning phoenix bookmark and more using the etch-art panels and etching stylus! Anodic etching has been used in industrial processes for over a century. The etching power is a source of direct current. The item to be etched (anode) is connected to its positive pole. A receiver plate (cathode) is connected to its negative pole. Both, spaced slightly apart, are immersed in a suitable aqueous solution of a suitable electrolyte. The current pushes the metal out from the anode into solution and deposits it as metal on the cathode. Shortly before 1990, two groups working independently [22] [23] developed different ways of applying it to creating intaglio printing plates. US 5102520,Behr, Marion&Behr, Omri,"Electrolytic etching process and apparatus therefor",published 1992-04-07 . The voltage should be adjustable to operate accurately within a rather narrow voltage range, such that the minimum voltage shall be at least that of the ionization potential of the metal object in the electrolyte chosen and the maximum shall not substantially exceed the sum of the decomposition voltage of the aqueous electrolyte and the over-voltage of the cathode selected. oil/tar based asphaltum [18] or bitumen as hard ground, although often bitumen is used to protect steel plates from rust and copper plates from aging.

Draw on the etch-art panels with the stylus to uncover the bright foil or patterns underneath, making your creations burst with life!

Behr, Omri (1997), "An improved method for steelfacing copper etching plates", Leonardo, The MIT Press, 30 (#1): 47–48, doi: 10.2307/1576375, JSTOR 1576375, S2CID 139028601 Copper is a traditional metal, and is still preferred, for etching, as it bites evenly, holds texture well, and does not distort the color of the ink when wiped. Zinc is cheaper than copper, so preferable for beginners, but it does not bite as cleanly as copper does, and it alters some colors of ink. Steel is growing in popularity as an etching substrate. Increases in the prices of copper and zinc have steered steel to an acceptable alternative. The line quality of steel is less fine than copper, but finer than zinc. Steel has a natural and rich aquatint. By working with a variety of trusted Range Plus Partners, we’re able to offer our customers a wider selection of products.