Drawing of Italian Woman in a Doorway for a Softgroud Etching

This is a drawing I have never posted before. I did it quite a while ago, but
I think it is interesting because most people would wonder why it is brown, unless
they are familiar with printmaking. --  I use a wonderful softground varnish made
by Lefranc&Bourgeois called "Vernis Noir Mou", which just means "Black Soft
Varnish". It comes in a small white glass jar and you scoop some out with a palette
knife and put it in a piece of nylon stocking. -- Then you heat up your zinc or
copper plate, rub the ground over the plate; it melts and you quickly roll it out
with a soft rubber roller into a uniform coating. Once it cools down you can put
a piece of paper over it and do a drawing. The ground sticks to the paper wherever
there has been pressure from the pencil - therefor exposing the plate in those areas.
The plate is then put in nitric acid (this was a zinc plate) and "bitten" until the
image is deep enough to create a print when inked up. --  The reason this drawing
is brown is that I used tracing paper and the brown is the color of the ground that
has stuck to the paper because of the pressure of my hard pencil. Complicated,
but rewarding.