SUGAR-LIFT PROCESS			Edith Smith, Instructor




	The sugar-lift technique or lift ground process is the only etching

technique that resembles brush painting.  Because single-surface brushy

effects are its forte, it resembles Japanese sumi painting or wash drawing.

Subjects and manners very different from line-bit etchings can be

attempted.  Probably the most famous sugar-lift etchings of this century

are Rouault's "Miserere" series; Picasso's bullfight scenes, some of his

Neo-classic etchings, his illustrations of Buffon "Histoire Naturelle," etc.;

Peter Milton's early winter landscapes.


	The painting medium I recommend is made up of 50% Karo Syrup and

50% India Ink, which provides COLOR, so the artist may see clearly what he is

producing -- and which dilutes the sticky syrup to a consistency which can be

well-controlled by the brush.  Further dilution may be made with water if

necessary.  But, in general, the artist should try to work with as thick a 

syrup solution as he can handle with beauty and facility -- in order that the

sugar concentration be sufficient for an accurate "lift."


	I will now explain the process and leave for last a consideration of

three possible variations in method.  The syrupy solution is painted on a 

metal plate previously cleaned with Windex.  The painting creates the POSITIVE

image desired.  Or, in the manner of Peter Milton, the syrup-ink may be put

on the plate with a pen.  I feel, however, that the effect of this sort of

pen work (especially stipple work) can be more accurately achieved by working

with a pen and non-crawl film ink on acetate and then shooting this drawing

on a photo-sensitive plate.  The "expressive", loose brushwork of Picasso in

his sugar-lift "Portrait of Vollard I.", 1937, is an admirable application of

the technique.  The textural effects of brush strokes are perceived by the

viewer, and provide a major aesthetic appeal in the work.  If you do not make

use of these expressive gestures and these textures, there is no need to choose

sugar-lift as a procedure.  The best brushes for this process are Japanese

blending brushes.  Different textural applications might be made with cotton,

crushed paper, etc.


	After waiting about 15 minutes you will find the syrup-ink solidified,

but not really dried, as it ALWAYS remains TACKY.  At this point you cover

the whole plate with a thin layer of Universal Etching Ground, brushed on

with a large (c. #6) Japanese blending brush in even, parallel bands.  (If

asphaltum is used, it should be diluted with enough mineral spirits to make

it the same consistency as the former.)


	After another 15 minute wait the varnish is dry and the ground is

ready to be "lifted."  The plate is held under a jet of very hot tap water.

If the ground has been put on thinly enough, just the contact with the water

jet will cause the membrane of resist to break at the edge of the syrup.

The water causes the sugar to SWELL and break the varnish resist just at

the edges.  Then, since the varnish really sits on top of the syrup and

not on top of the plate, as the syrup is dissipated by the water, its

varnish topping is also "lifted" off.  Thus, you find your whole positive,

brushed image OPEN for the attack of nitric acid.  The negative areas, or

whites in your final print, are still preserved from acid attack by varnish-

ground.  If, by chance, the hot water jet does not lift your entire image,

a certain amount of rubbing with your fingers over the "stubborn" section

usually yields the desired result.


	The sugar-lift method involves a tonal, not a linear approach.

With a tonal etching, aquatint is usually necessary.  If the plate were

bitten at this point WITHOUT aquatint, an OPEN bite would occur, placing

the positive image at a lower level than the plate's surface, but not

insuring that the ink would stay there in an intaglio wipe.  At this point,

however, the plate may be prepared for printing as a blind embossing or as

a color viscosity etching, or as a relief print in one or two colors.

For a relief roll-up it is probably desirable to have a one-hour's bite in

10:1 Nitric Acid to have the lower surface sufficiently removed from the

upper surface to prevent offsetting of the surface ink.  The color viscosity

procedure is quite complex, especially conceptually, and I refer the student

to another paper I've prepared on that subject.


	If aquatint is to be used, a rosin aquatint may be applied at the 

very beginning, before the sugar-ink painting but after the plate has been

washed with Windex.  It is fused by heat all over the plate's surface.  

A second method is to spray an acid resist paint on the plate after the 

LIFT but before the acid bath.  A slow side to side swing of the arm is 

used in the spraying technique.  As with a rosin aquatint, the paint

particles should hit 50% of the surface.  After a spray aquatint I

recommend a 12 hour wait before the nitric bath.  This allows the lacquer

paint to dry and adhere thoroughly.


	From here on, the plate may be treated technically as any other

aquatint.  You may have short baths and stop-outs to produce light greys,

or you may have only one bath of about 14 minutes to produce a black (and

the illusion of a Japanese brush painting).  A reference to Picasso's

"Histoire Naturelle" etchings gives the student a good glimpse at a

two-stop-out result.  Remembering the "brushy" character of the EDGES

of your syrup painting, you may desire to DRAG your brush containing

stop-out varnish, producing similar "brushed" edges in the middle tones:

you can "spread" your bristles with your fingers to enhance this effect

and to make these interior edges as similar as possible to the sugar-lift

edges.  In Picasso's "Vollard I." etching, he has used two or more completely

different lift drawings, with different length nitric baths:  all the

tonal edges have the character of sugar-ink; none have the less desirable

character of painting with the varnish, which is more clumsy and less apt

to yield beautiful details.


	Before inking and printing, the plate must be cleaned.  Universal

Etching Ground is solvent in mineral spirits.  Rosin aquatint is solvent in

alcohol.  Spray lacquer aquatint is solvent in lacquer thinner.