A Treatise on Etching

by Maxime Lalanne

These various recommendations are by no means unnecessary, as the least material obstacle may sometimes hinder the flight of the imagination. It is well to be armed against all the troublesome vexations of the handicraft; for the difficulties of the art are in themselves sufficient to occupy our attention.

B. Preparing the Plate.

I shall now proceed to give the various talks which I had with my young pupil.

17. Laying the Ground, or Varnishing.—You have here a plate, I say to him; I clean it with turpentine; then, having well wiped it with a piece of fine linen, and having still further cleaned it by rubbing it with Spanish white (or whiting), I fasten it into the vice by one of its edges, taking care to place a tolerably thick piece of paper under the teeth of the vice, so as to protect the copper against injury. I now hold the plate with its back over this chafing-dish; but a piece of burning paper, or the flame of a spirit-lamp, will do equally well. As soon as the plate is sufficiently heated, I place upon its polished surface this ball of ordinary etching-ground, wrapped up in a piece of plain taffeta; the heat causes the ground to melt. If the plate is too hot, the varnish commences to boil while melting; in that case, we must allow the plate to cool somewhat, as otherwise the ground will be burned. I pass the ball over the whole surface of the copper, taking care not to overcharge the plate with the ground. Then, with the dabber, I dab it in all directions; at first, vigorously and quickly, so as to spread and equalize the layer of varnish; and finally, as the varnish cools, I apply the dabber more delicately. The appearance of inequalities, and of little protruding points in the ground, indicates that it is laid on too thick, and the dabbing must be continued, until we have obtained a perfectly homogeneous layer. This must be very thin,—sufficient to resist strong biting, and yet allowing the point to draw the very finest lines, which it will be difficult to do with too much varnish.

18. Smoking.—Without waiting for the plate to cool, I turn it over, and present its varnished side to the smoke of a torch or a wax taper, which I hold at a distance of about two centimetres from the plate, so as not to injure the varnish. I keep moving the flame about in all directions, to avoid burning the varnish (which latter would take place if the flame remained too long at the same point), and thus I obtain a brilliant black surface. All the transparency is gone; we see neither copper nor varnish, and this is a sign that our operation has succeeded. All we need do now is to allow the plate to cool and the varnish to harden, and then you can commence making your drawing.

You call my attention to the fact that the varnish, in cooling, loses the brilliancy which it had in its liquid state. This is always the case. And see the perfect neatness and evenness of the varnished and smoked surface! Here is a plate which was spoiled in the smoking. The first thing that strikes us is that we see the marks left by the passage of the taper. At a pinch, these marks might, perhaps, be no inconvenience to us in working; but here the brilliant black is broken by very dull spots. These are places in which the varnish was burned; it will scale off under the needle, and has lost the power of resisting the acid. We must therefore clean this plate with spirits of turpentine, and commence operations afresh.

The ground is blackened, because its natural transparency does not permit us to see the work of the point. This work produces what might be called a negative design; that is to say, a design in bright lines on a black ground. This is rather perplexing at first, but you will soon become accustomed to it.

C. Drawing on the Plate with the Needle.

19. The Transparent Screen.—You must place yourself so as to face this window, and between you and it we must introduce, in an inclined position, a transparent screen made of tracing paper stretched on a wooden frame, which will prevent your seeing the window. This screen will soften and strain the light; it will reduce the reflection of the copper, and will allow you to see what you are doing.

In designing on the plate out of doors, the screen is unnecessary, since, as the light falls equally upon the copper from all directions, the reflection is done away with, and the copper does not dazzle the eye as it does when the light emanates from a single source.