Shoulder

I started my new engraving today. It's called "shoulder", because that's what it is. I'll be working on it the rest of the week and into next week, so you can't see it yet. Hopefully, it'll be done and printed in ten days. The plate is a thick 4" x 6" piece of copper that I bought over 30 years ago. Originally, it was 18"x24" but it's been clipped smaller and smaller over time, and used for very special prints. I found it all crusty in the bottom of a box in the attic (yes, we have a real attic - including bats and cobwebs). It took an hour to polish the surface and bevel the edges so the plate won't cut the thick paper when it's inked and run through the press.

The basic drawing is already scratched in lightly with a drypoint needle, and I'll start the actual engraving tomorrow. The last thing I've got to do tonight is sharpen the burin. The burin is a small tool and there's not much to it, but it hasn't changed for thousands of years. Of course, it's only been used for printmaking in the last five hundred. When the burin is resting in the palm of your hand and you're pushing it forward like an index finger extension, there is a barely audible sound of copper coming up in curls as it's cut away.

Tomorrow, I'll spend five or six hours hunched over a table with my nose a few inches away from both hands as they work the plate. This probably sounds impossibly uncomfortable and, believe me, after six hours it is, but most of the time I'll be oblivious - lost in the reflections of a small gleaming piece of metal. The print must be built up line by line. During all this time you must hold to your vision with intensity, remember every stroke made, and anticipate every stroke to come. Six hours will pass as if they're sixty minutes.

Adrian