Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 November 1874 — The Art of Etching. [ARTICLE]

The Art of Etching.

... “To draw upon the varnished surface of a copper plate, with a steel point, the lines that are to give the form and light and shadow of your picture, to bite those lines by the application of a hath of acid and finally to transfer your work to 1 paper with ink and a printing press”— such, in the words of an art writer, is the simple process of etching, as it may best be described* Such, rather, is the mechanical portion of ij, detailed in a few words. If I were to teach a pupil how to etch, 1 should follow the natural and only method that has been pursued from the beginning. I should first see whether he could draw- with a ready hand. If he could not, and I had.fair reasons for supposing that he had within him” a talent that needed only cultivation to bring it out, I should furnish him with pen and ink. or a choice set of lead pencils (the latter are not to be so highly commended), and ask him to sketch an oak tree that towered in an neighbor’s yard; or a plain rural cottage on the wayside; or an old well-sweep and the bushes around it; or the outlet of a brook emptying into the pond; or one or two of the sheep browsing along the fence. I should ask him to sketch any one of these several objects as opportunity occurred—not to make a careful and concise drawing of it—always remembering to mark, in a fair and artistic mannur, the shades and lights, the outlines and dots, and the odds and ends. And when he had succeeded, after repeated-trials, in bring out the effect —when he had related artistically, for instance, how the sheep wandering from the main flock had, ( sought the rich verdure that clung to the shadow of the fence, but not designed the same in their truthful proportions—he should next use sepia and a brush, and endeavor therewith to make drawings on a grander scale, wherein the contrast of light and shade might be more fully and forcibly exhibited. This apprenticeship, if I may so term it, would prove of the highest advantage. In the majority of cases it would enable the amateur in whom glowed the spark of genius to discern the reasons of .many natural effects, inspire him with a taste for nature’s Beauties, teach him the end of art, and discover to him the two-fold aim of the etcher, linear expression and tonality. —Galaxy far November.