62. Holes in the Ground.—Having once taken up the consideration of the little mishaps which may befall the etcher, I shall now show you another plate in which the sky is dotted by a number of minute holes of no great depth (piqués). This plate has, no doubt, been retouched, and the ground having been badly laid, the acid played mischief with it. It is very lucky that the lines in the sky are widely separated, as otherwise these holes would be inextricably mixed up with them. We can rid ourselves of them by a few strokes of the burnisher, and by rubbing with charcoal-paste and a bit of fine linen. The burnisher alone would give too much polish to the copper; in printing the ink would leave no tint on the plate in these spots, and the traces of the burnisher would show as white marks in the proofs. To avoid this, the copper must be restored to its natural state.[14]
“What would happen,” asks another of my pupils, “if these little holes occurred in a sky or in some other closely worked passage? Here is a plate in which this accident has befallen some clouds and part of the ground. What shall I do?”
To begin with, let me tell you for your future guidance that this accident would not have happened if you had waited for the drying of the ground with which you covered this sky after you had bitten it. The acid, which never loses an opportunity given it by mismanagement or inattention, worked its way unbeknown to you through the soft varnish in the clouds as well as in the ground, and went on a spree at your expense. Remember that nitric acid is very selfish; it insists that it shall always be uppermost in your mind, and all your calculations must take this demand into account; its powers, creative as well as destructive, are to be continually dreaded; it likes to see you occupy yourself with it continually, watchfully, and with fear. If you turn your back to it, it plays you a trick, and thus it has punished you for neglecting it for a moment.
“Thank you. But you are acting the part of La Fontaine's schoolmaster, who moralized with the pupil when he had fallen into the water.”
63. Planing out Faulty Passages.—And that did not help him out. You are right. Well, you must go to some skilful copper-planer,[15] who will work away at the spoiled part of your plate with scraper and burnisher and charcoal, until he has restored the copper to its virgin state; then all you've got to do will be to do your work over again.
“That is rather a blunt way of settling the question. Seeing that we are about to cut into the flesh after this fashion, might it not be as well to have the whole of the sky taken out altogether? I am not satisfied with it, any way.”
Certainly. By the same process the planer can remove every thing, up to the outlines of the trees and the figures in your plate; he will cut out any thing you want, and yet respect all the outlines, if you will only indicate your wishes on a proof. In this passage, where you see deep holes, scraper and charcoal will be insufficient; the planer must, therefore, hammer them out before he goes at the other parts. As regards the little holes in the foreground, since they are not as deep as the lines among which they appear, you can remove them, or at least reduce them, by means of charcoal, without injury to the deeply bitten parts.
You may follow this plan whenever you are convinced that a lowering of tone will do no harm to your first work. In the opposite case, you must either have recourse to the planer, or put up with the accident. If you are not too much of a purist, you will occasionally find these piqués productive of a piquant effect, and then you will take good care not to touch them.
“That's a 'point' which you did not mention among the utensils! You have ingenious ways of getting out of a scrape.”
We cut out, or cut down, or dig away, whole passages, according to necessity. I have seen the half of a plate planed off, because the design was faulty.