Mezzotint engraving on Magnani Pescia paper gr.300 cm.50x72 plate size cm.26x50. It was made with an edition of fifty copies.

 

Mezzotint engraving is a technique of direct engraving. At first, the copper sheet is worked with a tool called crocker, a special steel serrated mezzaluna knife: moving it with pressure, you get a series of little cavities. The sheet is processed in several steps, uniformly and in different directions. This procedure is called. slab graining

Now the sheet wrought is worked with a burnisher to reduce ink levels in some areas, scraping away the grain of the metal according to the shades we’re trying to get.

Mezzotint engraving allows one to obtain deeply shaded nuances, with a rich selection of halftones, out of reach by other engraving techniques.