Painters of Native American Indians

Printmaking
The method known as traditional etching method is unique in that it allows the production of what may be a varied limitation of images that can be almost identical. Not simply reproductions, etchings involve the artist in each step of the process involved in printmaking from drawing, etching the plate, pulling each print, hand-coloring the etching, and finally numbering the edition. Thus, each etching is an original work of art.
The etching process as applied to printmaking is believed to have been invented by the Daniel Hopfer of Germany in the early sixteenth century. Hopfer begin his career in etching through decorating armor, and began to apply the same methods to printmaking. The plates used were made from iron. Early printers saw the advantages of etchings over the traditional engraving of plates which required specific metal working skills, whereas etchings required artistic skills only. Incidentally examples of Hoofer’s first metal plates are still around today.
Another pioneer in etching was the Frenchman, Jacques Callot who also was active in the early part of the sixteenth century. Callot was responsible for some of the more serious technical advances made in etching including the échoppe, The échoppe was an actual etching needle that had a slanting oval shaped section at its end, This section enabled etchers to replicate the engraver’s “swelling line” This breakthrough allowed etchers o produce work of a much more delicate quality as highly detailed if not more so than the engravers, and effectively breaking their monopoly in preparing plates for printmaking. .
This is the factor that probably persuaded such great masters of painting, among them Rembrandt, Picasso, Goya, and other masters, to use the etching process to express their artistic vision. Etching has stood the test of time and is till in use in certain forms by printmakers till today. To create a perfect etching the art does not need to full express their artistic talents, but are also required to find the balance of working with the chemicals that are a necessary ingredient developing the image on the plate.
This is sometimes difficult to imagine for the layman as to how these old masters envisioned these impressions in their mind, with the intention of creating an image as an etching and not an oil painting. The process involved is first to create he image as a drawing which is not put down on canvas or even paper. Instead the artists lightly scratches their images onto a plate made from either copper or zinc, and coated with wax. By scratching through the wax, the artist it has to be said fairly effortlessly, scratches an impression on the zinc or copper surface thus creating the basis of an “etching.” .
The next stage in the etching process is where the chemicals come into play. Through being immersed into an acid bath, the engraved plate, with the wax protecting the larger area that has not been etched, while the acid erodes the exposed or “etched” metal, emphasizing and deepening the grooves in the metal. To take the process a stage further, the artist can produce subtle shading variations by pre-determining the amount of time the plate, or a section of it, will remain in acid. This can be done by “fine masking” specific figures in the painting that the artist wants to stand out.
Upon completion of the process of acid induced accentuation of the etching process, the next stage is to completely remove all traces of the wax on the surface. The next step is to coat the surface of the now deeply etched plate with a coating of special ink of a certain color. After this stage is completed to the artist’s satisfaction, the ink is them removed from the surface apart from that which has become embedded deep into the grooves, thus determining the etching’s background. This obviously creates a one colored etching, which in some cases the artist considers to be the finished product.
If the artist is interested in creating a multi colored etching, the process is similar but slightly more complicated. One alternative is to create as series of multiple plates to create multi -colored prints. Or if the artist is interested in creating a more limited edition, he can simply paint a few impressions onto the print using either pastel paints or water colors.