Aquatint

In order to print intalgio you need to engrave into a perfectly smooth metal plate. Any incision will print a line because it will still hold pockets of color after whiping the surface of the plate clean.

To print colored patches or surfaces you need a very fine raster, so that after etching you are left with a grid of pockets, which will still hold color after whiping the plate. To produce such a very fine raster - to fine to be resolved by the human eye - we use dust. That's it.

Colors

For printmakers the word ‘color’ has a special meaning. Most of the time ‘color’ means black - but in different variations, of course. Often, you would burn something very specific to make a special black color. Then those different (black) colors carry the name of the material that was burned to produce the respective tonality:

Although all our colors are black, we distinguish other critical properties: for example, any (black) color can be ‘long’ or ‘short’ refering to its viscosity: when taking it between the fingers you can make the test youself.