Friday, June 12, 2009

Etchings on a Metal Plate

Sometimes an etching - another 2-dimensional art form - is done by scratching through a "ground" that has been placed on a rectangular metal plate. This again will show up in two colors, when printed, like black and white, and thus is sometimes called a graphic art.

Even today one will see an etching that has been rendered in "crosshatch", and thus an artist can apply tons of shading, and to many and various degrees, unlike the woodcut.

Historically speaking many etchings were done, even for rough sketches, by some of the finest and most famous artists, say back in the Middle Ages; send me a comment and let me know if you have some of those famous names!

Sometimes the "ground" can be a SOFT ground, which means a person can "draw" through it with say, a match, from a book of matches - as I have done - instead of scratching through a hard ground on the plate. This can represent a much more casual or "free" mode of drawing.

3 comments:

  1. A soft ground is made of what?

    I liked your ads, at first they seemed to the point. I clicked through on the online drawing class ad expecting to find what was advertised, "the best Online Drawing courses. Practice your Art for free". It was just a sign up for the University of Phoenix'(and other colleges) "arts programs", you know Bachelor of Arts in accounting and the like. Certainly, no "free" art classes!
    No likey that ad, so I clicked on Engrave.com It is place to get your "brass plate" engraved. The Google robots also provided ads for 2 galleries that offer no etchings. They need to smarten up; these ads were only a little less random than the first ads that came up, when you first signed up. Those choices will not provide you much money from click-throughs. Not one ad was relevant to your topic and just increased annoyance.

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  2. Hey, Pearl, thank you for making a comment, and I am interested in your "take", must follow up.I personally did go to "Stock Illustrations" (Scratchboard, woodcut, pen & ink etc.) and found it to be very impressive, but I want to ask you, from where do I know you, or are you Katey!!?

    And a soft ground is made of stuff that the teacher in an etching class hands out.....!

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  3. "And a soft ground is made of stuff that the teacher in an etching class hands out.....!"
    Please give me some examples, my imagination fails me.

    First comment is with my gmail ID, I did not realize you did not know it. Katey

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