Mezzotint

A mezzotint is made by repeatedly pressing a curved, serrated mezzotint rocker over the surface of a copper plate until it has received many thousands of tiny little indentations from this tool. This procedure is extremely time consuming, but plates made this way yield rich, velvety blacks that can be obtained in no other way. After the entire surface of the plate has been roughened, scrapers and burnishers are employed to achieve tones of grey and white. Mezzotints do not produce large editions because the plates were out quickly

Few contemporary artists have the time to rock a plate with a mezzatint rocker long enough to produce the velvety black impression so characteristic of the best work. Mezzotint is an engraving method, with the rocker digging into the surface of the plate, each time raising a tiny burr next to each pit left by the sharp points of the serrated edge. Rocking a plate can take hours, because it must be rocked completely in one direction, then at right angles to the first direction, then in the diagonal directions, and finally in dircctions between the diagonals. See the diagram of rocking angles. At least eight rockings are necessary over the complete surface of the plate. Needless to say, the plate should be copper, because zinc will yield so many fewer impressions; and we assume that after all the work of rocking you will want an adequate edition.

When the plate is rocked to completion it will print as a solid black. The design is placed into the rough surface of the mezzotint by scraping and burnishing. Special knife scrapers and fine burnishers are available that make very delicate work possible. The rich quality of the blacks should be exploited, though, and it would be silly to. scrape large areas of a mezzotint.

To do particularly small details it will be necessary to work in dark lines and tones with the point of a needle or a roulette wheel. Very small rockers made for detail work are helpful in reworking areas that have been over-scraped. Roulettes are made in various sizes and in a number of patterns and textures. The irregular roulette is good for matching the texture of the rocked plate. In England a rocking apparatus is used to guide the rocker as it moves across the plate making the lines parallel and easily controlled.

A deeply bitten aguatint will approximate but not equal the dense rich black of the mezzotint, and several artists have exploited this shortcut to good effect. During printing, the ink should be oilier than usual, and the plate hand-wiped. Use no paper wipe except for the highlights. Take as few proofs as possible during the working of the image. If a large edition is wanted, the copper may be steel-faced.