In this method, the entire surface of the plate is roughened by a spiked tool called a rocker, so that, if inked, the entire plate would print in solid black. Etching has been a favored technique for artists for centuries, thanks largely to the ease with which an etched image is created. The artist creates his or her composition by drawing through the ground to expose the metal. For printing, the ground is removed, ink is introduced into the incised lines, and the plate is wiped clean. The plate is covered with dampened paper and run through a press under great pressure in order to force the paper into the lines, resulting in the raised characteristic of etching.
Aquatint is an etching process in which the artist is concerned with tone rather than line.
For this technique, a plate is covered with particles of acid-resistant material such as resin and heated to make the particles stick. The treated plate is then placed in an acid bath, which bites into the copper that is exposed between grains of resin, yielding a composition marked by texture and tone. Lithography Invented in 1798, lithography is perhaps best known from the prints of the 1890s by artists like Pierre Bonnard, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and others. To make a lithograph, the artist uses a greasy medium such as crayon or tusche to create a composition on a stone or plate. The surface is then dampened with water, which is repelled by the greasy areas, sticking only to the sections of the plate that have not been marked by the artist.