Etching is a printing technique known also as intaglio, where an artist takes a metal plate and coats it with an acid-resistant substance. The artist then takes a sharp tool and scratches or draws their design through the wax resin.
Print engraving is used to reproduce artworks, where a design or image is engraved into a soft metal plate, usually copper, using a special tool known as a “burin”.
A Swiss artist, Urs Graf, created the very first dated art etching in 1513 that was printed from an iron plate. The German artist Albrecht Durer was responsible for creating five art etchings in 1518.
This technique greatly speeded up the plate processing, making the hand movements, and subtlety of all the strokes much clearer and reproduction more accurate.
This technique requires the artist to take a piece of tracing paper, which is then placed carefully over the grounded metal plate before etching begins.
This is the more popular and direct technique of etching where a copper plate, that is coated with the ground, is used to scratch a design or image using a sharp tool.
The mezzotint etching technique is done using a copper plate that has been grounded, and then instead of scratching on the plate surface, a mezzotint rocker is used to remove the ground.
The artist scratches onto the surface of the plate with an etching needle called a “whistler”, which produces a velvety soft line that can hold the ink.