Do you want to know why Etchings are originals?
You take for example a copper plate.
You protect the polished, shiny surface with an acid resistant varnish.
Thereafter you take a steel needle with a very, very thin top.
Now start to scratch your picture in the surface.
Where the scratches are, the varnish protection is gone, and you can see the
shiny golden red of the copper plate.
Mostly you must work in 3 steps.
You must scratch first the most dark part of your etching.
Put the plate in an soft acid. Iron chloride is one of the best.
Take it out, rinse with water.
Step 2 is to scratch the next darker part of your picture.
Put again in the acid, it will bite again the darkest and the new ones.
Step 3 is to scratch the lightest part and put again in the acid.
Do it very short, the relation could be 5 minutes,3 minutes and 30 seconds
roughly.
Clean the plate. You will see now your scratches from darkest to lightest.
Dark lines in a golden shiny copper plate.
Now you need an etching press and etching color.
Cover your plate with the color, and then clean.
The color at the flat surface must be cleaned and the color on scratches must
stay.
Now you will see the golden shiny copper plate with a picture filled with color.
Lay the plate down on the etching press, put a lightly wet etching paper over
the plate and press.
You get the paper out of the press and see the picture you scratched printe.
Now your etching is finished
Could you do it now?
No? OK.. You could never be able to print the same print, it’s all the time
changing. It depends upon the amount of color you apply, the pressure of the
pressing machine, how much color goes away while cleaning, how wet the
paper is and so on.
That makes it original. Unique.
