Aquatint

Where etching uses a needle to scratch through an acid-proof resist and make lines, aquatint uses powdered rosin (resin) to create a tonal effect.

The rosin is acid resistant and typically adhered to the plate by controlled heating; where the grains are will print white, with black areas around.

The mezzotint plate is then smoothed and polished to make areas carry less ink and thus print a lighter shade.

A variety of early experiments aimed to add tonal effects to etching included the first use of a resin dust ground by the painter and printmaker Jan van de Velde IV in Amsterdam, around 1650.

B. Delafosse in 1766, working with the amateur Jean-Claude Richard (often rather misleadingly known as the Abbé de Saint-Non) in 1766, and Jean-Baptiste Le Prince in 1768–69.

Le Prince was more effective than the others in publicizing his technique, publishing Découverte du procédé de graver au lavis in 1780, though he failed to sell his secret in his lifetime.

[9] Though England was to become one of the countries using the technique most, the earliest English aquatints were not exhibited until 1772, by the cartographer Peter Perez Burdett.

Publishers of prints and illustrations for expensive books, both important British markets at the time, also adopted the technique.

Artists included Jean-François Janinet and Philibert-Louis Debucourt, whose La Promenade Publique is often thought the masterpiece of the style.

[14] Goya, maker of incontestably the greatest prints using aquatint, probably learned of the technique through Giovanni David from Genoa, the first significant Italian to use it.

In the United States the printmaker Pedro Joseph de Lemos popularized aquatints in art schools with his publications (1919–1940), which simplified the cumbersome techniques, and with traveling exhibitions of his award-winning prints.

Now the plate is dipped in acid, producing an even and fine level of corrosion (the "bite") sufficient to hold ink.

At some point the artist will then etch an outline of any aspects of the drawing they wish to establish with line; this provides the basis and guide for the later tone work.

They may also have applied (at the very start, before any biting occurs) an acid-resistant "stop out" (also called an asphaltum or hard ground) if they intend to keep any areas totally white and free of ink, such as highlights.

The first etch should be for a short period (30 seconds to 1 minute, with a wide variation depending on how light the lightest tones are meant to be).

1835 aquatint showing the first production of I puritani . Note range of tones.
Demonstration sections of printed aquatint, magnified.
Goya , No. 32 of Los Caprichos (1799, Por que fue sensible ). This is a fairly rare example of a print entirely in aquatint. [ 5 ]
Philibert-Louis Debucourt , The Public Promenade , 1792. Printed in colour from various plates, using etching, engraving, and aquatint. One of the leading achievements of the French 18th-century colour-print.
Joseph Lycett , The residence of Edward Riley Esquire, Wooloomooloo, Near Sydney N. S. W. , 1825, hand-coloured aquatint and etching printed in dark blue ink. Australian print in the tradition of British decorative production. The artist had been transported for forging bank notes.
Mary Cassatt , Woman Bathing , drypoint and aquatint, from three plates, 1890–91
aquatint box, used to apply resin powder on the plate.
Zinc plate with powder resin.