Traditional drypoints are made by using a scribe (a sharp metal pointy thing) and a burin (a different sharp metal pointy thing) to scratch marks into a smooth copper plate.
After drawing with the sharp metal pointy things, ink is rolled across the plate, and then gently rubbed off with cloth, leaving only the ink in the areas that were marked with sharp metal pointy things.
James McCallam
In a drypoint, it’s not just the scraped out lines that hold the ink, but the burr – a rough ridge of metal on each side of the furrow of the line – that holds the ink.
These burrs give a characteristic soft fuzziness to drypoint prints. Because of the burr, drypoint plates only print a limited number before they’re done, because each printing from the plate destroys the burrs a little, and once the burrs are gone, they no longer hold sufficient ink for a good print.
100 years after Rembrandt ran his series of drypoint plates in the 1600s, a man in the 1700s named Captain William Baillie acquired those plates. This gentleman thought the lines could use some new burrs, so he re-etched them with his sharp metal pointy things. He just…. did that. And he printed them. And they were bad. And then he sold them. He sold quite a few of these bad prints as original Rembrandts without anyone knowing.
“Gotcha, you fucker.”
-Suzanne Walker, WTF Art History Lecture on Rembrandt
An authentically original letter from Suzanne Walker, League Art Historian, imperceptively altered as it was copied and pasted here for your enjoyment:
The Hundred-Guilder-Print is an etching that was attacked with drypoint and burin, first by Rembrandt himself and then by our good friend Captain William Baillie.
Baillie didn’t get caught because he wasn’t committing a crime, by 18th-century standards. People are still debating about the Rodins made from his casts after his death Also, the market for Rembrandt prints was huge in England in the 18th century, and there was so much crap around that an inferior Rembrandt was not necessarily too aesthetically offensive.
Info on Captain Bill Baillie from Suzanne Walker’s WTF Art History Lecture on Rembrandt [nectar_image_comparison image_url=”9249″ image_2_url=”9248
Today’s challenge is from Catherine Lepp, our newest instructor from the New York Studio School. Catherine is teaching Drawing and Painting the Head and Beginning Watercolor this quarter. She joins us from the New York Studio School. Draw the head of a classical sculpture using only circles and straight lines. #circlesandstraights Something like a ruler will be helpful. …
Edward Hopper is one of the greatest American painters of the 20th century, having influence over photography and cinema as well as painting. His direct and realist paintings depicted light and shadow, and solitude in daily contemporary life. But what influences did Hopper have? Rejecting the style of his time, Hopper was most influenced by …
In the past, if I had two words to describe watercolor, I might say “fresh” and “delicate.” I’d always thought of watercolor as a fairly fragile medium that shouldn’t be worked too hard. I thought of the white of the paper as the most valuable resource, and the greatest mistake would be to lose that …
Exercise your creativity This SAL Challenge is a vocabulary based creative challenge every day for January. Materials are artist’s choice. You can draw, paint, sew, collage, sculpt your food, anything you want. See below for today’s creative challenge. Set the timer for 20 minutes and see what happens. SLIMSY : flimsy, frail Slimsy is a blend …
Gotcha, You Fucker!
[image_with_animation image_url=”9247″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”]
Re-etched Rembrandt Drypoint Prints
Traditional drypoints are made by using a scribe (a sharp metal pointy thing) and a burin (a different sharp metal pointy thing) to scratch marks into a smooth copper plate.
After drawing with the sharp metal pointy things, ink is rolled across the plate, and then gently rubbed off with cloth, leaving only the ink in the areas that were marked with sharp metal pointy things.
In a drypoint, it’s not just the scraped out lines that hold the ink, but the burr – a rough ridge of metal on each side of the furrow of the line – that holds the ink.
These burrs give a characteristic soft fuzziness to drypoint prints. Because of the burr, drypoint plates only print a limited number before they’re done, because each printing from the plate destroys the burrs a little, and once the burrs are gone, they no longer hold sufficient ink for a good print.
100 years after Rembrandt ran his series of drypoint plates in the 1600s, a man in the 1700s named Captain William Baillie acquired those plates. This gentleman thought the lines could use some new burrs, so he re-etched them with his sharp metal pointy things. He just…. did that. And he printed them. And they were bad. And then he sold them. He sold quite a few of these bad prints as original Rembrandts without anyone knowing.
An authentically original letter from Suzanne Walker, League Art Historian, imperceptively altered as it was copied and pasted here for your enjoyment:
Info on Captain Bill Baillie from Suzanne Walker’s WTF Art History Lecture on Rembrandt [nectar_image_comparison image_url=”9249″ image_2_url=”9248
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