Page:Chats on old prints (IA chatsonoldprints00haydiala).pdf/419

 between themselves and the printer. Its qualities in this respect in enabling artists to work straight on the stone with the same ease that they could draw on paper resembled etching in its appeal direct from the artist to his public.

Lithographic chalk, a more convenient form for use in drawing, was made of common soap, tallow, virgin wax, shellac, and lamp-black. When the design is transferred on to the stone from paper, a bridge is made over the stone to prevent the hand from touching it, for so sensitive is it that if the fingers be placed on any portion the slight perspiration is sufficient to take the ink at a later stage and consequently give a finger print or black smudge in the printed lithograph.

The drawing on the stone is made in the same manner as in using a BBB pencil on fairly smooth paper. The flat tints are produced with using faint strokes patiently worked in varying directions. In cases of strong, high lights they are scraped out. In corrections when work is too dark a needle is used to pick out the chalk in the manner of stipple.

"Etching in" is the next step. Aquafortis diluted to the strength of one part acid to a hundred parts water is poured over the stone, which is then washed with water, and finished with a solution of weak gum-water being poured over it. The action of the acid on the untouched portions of the stone is to strengthen the quality the stone possesses in refusing the printing ink, and the gum-water fills up the pores.

The process was found capable of great extension. A method of etching was employed, a ground was