Chin Colle / Collage

Collage, as you know, is a French term for adhering paper, cardboard, or fabric to a flat surface. Chin Colle on the other hand, is a process in which very thin papers are compressed onto the printing surface. Normally the “rice paper” application is placed on top of the prepared and inked plate, and applied with a thin glue or cellulose. When the edition is made the glue adheres to the printing making paper, and the image is transferred to the collage paper as well. The two papers become one when they are rolled through the press.

Etching

Etching includes a wide variety of processes, most of which start with a highly polished plate of zinc or copper. The plate will be coated in areas with an acid resisting “ground” ( a material that masks the surface). Areas on the plate that are exposed, usually by scratching through the ground with a steel tool, are etched when the plate is placed in an acid bath. This bath is a diluted form of the acid or corrosive. When etching with zinc, nitric acid forms the bath, and when etching in copper, the bath is a ferric chloride.
Later, during the printing process, these etched lines will hold ink and will deposit the ink directly on to the print paper as the print is “pulled” through the etching press.

Aquatint

The aquatint process in printmaking is somewhat equivalent to the “half-tone” process in photography. It’s purpose is to create shades of value ( or color) over the area of the print.
In creating the aquatint, a rosin powder is dusted over the surface of the plate, usually while the plate sits inside a rosin box. When the “dust settles”, the rosin covered plate is heated, and the powder meals creating microscopic dots, and spaces of raw metal..
By alternately exposing or covering the plate with the hard ground, the surface of the plate takes on a multitude of values, from very light, to light gray, to medium gray, the dark gray, to black.