A Treatise on Etching Part 11

_Rags for wiping._ Fine Swiss muslin and the fabric known as cheese cloth make good rags for wiping. They can be bought at the dry-goods stores. As they are charged with some material to make them stiff and increase the weight, they must be washed before they are used. When they have become too much charged with ink they may be boiled out in a solution of potash or soda in water. The Swiss muslin costs about twelve cents a yard, the cheese cloth about five.

I had a lot of rags specially sent to me from Paris, as I wished to see the difference between the soft and the stiff muslin. The parcel contained a collection of pieces of a sort of Swiss muslin, evidently old curtains, and some pieces of old cotton s.h.i.+rting, some of which had done duty at the Hotel des Invalides, still bearing its stamp!

_Printing-ink and paper._ (See Notes 23 and 24.)

To _ink the plate_, place it on the plate-warmer and allow it to become as hot as your hand can bear. Then take up the ink from the ink-slab with the dabber and spread it all over the surface, moving the dabber along with a rocking motion, but not striking the plate with it. Take care that the lines are well filled. Sometimes, in the first inking of the plate, it is necessary to use the finger to force the ink into the lines.

In _wiping the plate_ the first operation is to remove all the superfluous ink from the surface by means of a rag. What follows depends on the kind of impression you desire to get. If you want a _natural_, _clean_, or _dry_ proof, as these impressions are variously called (i.

e. an impression which shows only black lines on a perfectly clear white ground), charge the palm of your hand with a _very little_ whiting or Spanish white, and with it finish the wiping of the plate. This operation will leave the surface of the plate perfectly clean and bright, while the ink remains in the lines. If you desire to have an even tint left all over the plate, avoid the use of the hand, and wipe with the rag only. Plate-printers use their rags moist, but for printing etchings a dry rag is preferable, as it leaves more of a tint on the plate. Note, also, that the rag must be tolerably well charged with ink to enable you to wipe a good tint with it.

The margin of the plate, even if a tint is left over it, must always be wiped clean. This is best accomplished by a bit of cotton cloth charged with whiting.

For the rest, nothing is left but to experiment according to the hints given in the text by M. Lalanne.

[23] (p. 59.) If you can, buy your ink of a plate-printer or of a lithographer. That used by book-printers will _not_ do! The trouble is that the ink used by ordinary plate-printers is of a disagreeably cold cast, as it is mixed with blue. Etchings ought to be printed with a warm black, and sometimes, especially in the case of somewhat over-bitten plates, with an ink of a decidedly brownish hue. Inks are made of linseed-oil varnish (i. e. linseed oil that has been boiled down or burned), and the blacks mentioned in the text. There are various qualities of varnish according to its consistency, varying from thin through medium to stiff. If you wish to mix your own ink, you must try to procure the materials of some plate-printer or lithographer. For varnish use the medium, for black the Francfort. The burnt Sienna (which you can buy at any paint-shop) is used only to warm up the black. Lay some of the dry color on your ink-slab, add a very little of the varnish, and mix with the muller. Then add more varnish until the ink forms a tolerably stiff paste. The grinding must be carefully done, so as to avoid grittiness. Besides, if the color is not thoroughly well incorporated with the varnish, the ink will not stand. To preserve the ink for future use, put it into some vessel with a cover, and pour water over it. The water standing on top of the ink keeps it soft. Otherwise the varnish would harden.

[24] (p. 60.) The heavy Dutch hand-made papers are still preferred by most people for etchings; but it is very difficult, if not impossible, to procure them in this country. The paper known as Lalanne charcoal paper, which is likewise a hand-made paper, can be bought at the artist's material stores. Good drawing-paper will also answer. The worst, because most inartistic, of all, is the plain white plate paper.

The paper used for the etchings in the AMERICAN ART REVIEW, first made especially for this journal according to my suggestions, has excellent printing qualities, although, being a machine-made, unglued paper, it lacks some of the characteristics of the Dutch hand-made paper. But its texture is very good, and it takes up the ink even _better_ than the Dutch papers.

j.a.panese paper can be procured of the firms named on page xiii.

Dry paper will not take a decent impression, and the sheets to be used for printing must therefore be moistened. To prepare the ordinary paper, take three or four sheets at a time, and pa.s.s them slowly through clean water contained in a pail or other vessel. Wet as many sheets as you may need, lay them on top of one another, place the pile between two boards, and allow them to lie thus under tolerably heavy pressure for at least twelve, or, better still, for twenty-four hours. The paper will then be ready for use.

To prepare j.a.panese paper, lay each sheet between two wet sheets of ordinary paper, and let it lie as before.

[25] (p. 60.) _epreuves de remarque._ The _remarque_ usually consists in leaving unfinished some little detail in an out-of-the-way corner of the plate. After the _epreuves de remarque_ have been printed, this detail is finished. A person who cannot tell a good impression from a bad one, or does not know whether a plate is spoiled or still in good condition, without some such extraneous sign, has slight claim to be considered a connoisseur.

[26] (p. 62.) New York is, for the present, I believe, the only place where steel-facing is done in America. I can recommend Mr. F. A.

Ringler, 21 and 23 Barclay Street, New York.

[27] (p. 62.) Zinc plates _can_ be steel-faced, but the facing cannot be renewed, as it cannot be removed. The zinc plate on which Mr. Lansil's little etching, given in this volume, is executed, was steel-faced. It is feasible also, the electrotypers tell me, to deposit a thin coating of copper on the zinc first, and then to superimpose a coating of steel.

In that case the steel-facing can be renewed as long as the copper-facing under it remains intact.