International studio (40.1910)

The Society of Graver-Printers in Colour

............mm ,r—m«—ri

"THE SHEPHERD AND HIS FLOCK" (WOOD ENGRAVING) BY E. C. AUSTEN BROWN

engraved plates, wood blocks or stone, or the using used when needed. Great judgment has to be

of one plate several times to produce the same used, and much time spent in the preparation and

print. The design is engraved solely for the colour, application of the pigments.

each plate or block having a part engraved upon it In the production of a colour print from wood

necessary to the whole. It may be necessary, blocks, each colour requires its corresponding block,

say in the case of a head, for the hair only to be which is cut out to the exact shape required by the

engraved on one plate, the face on another, and design; and this forms a tableland of wood, on

the background on a third; and in the case of which the colour is applied, this part being left in

metal plates a general design of the whole may be relief and the rest cut away. Although in wood

engraved on a fourth plate. The register of each blocks the imposition of one colour on another is

plate or block is of course a most important factor used, in general practice the printing is done in a

in the production of such delicate printing. somewhat mosaic-like way—a sepaiate block of

Much variety may also be obtained by using exact shape being cut and separately printed for

lithography, wood blocks and metal plates in the each colour that appears in the design. The gra-

one process. Each process, of course, has its own dation of colour possible in a wood block colour

individual quality, but the conjunction of two or print forms quite a strong feature, and it is by this

more in the production of the same print gives an means possible to gain many very beautiful effects ;

almost unlimited scope to the graver printer in note, for instance, the blue in the sky of many of

colour. The use of aquatint, with its unlimited the Japanese landscape prints,

grounds, the processes of soft ground etching and The quality of paper used for the print, again,

mezzotint, also of varied texture, are all available forms an interesting part of the process. Every

to him. etcher will admit that old hand-made paper is the

The colours employed also play a most important most suitable for printing, but it is now very diffi-

part in the production of a print. The colours cult to obtain in any large quantity. There are

may be thick or transparent, and black may be several firms and societies who manufacture a

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