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What one ink can do

Lesson 5 of 27 in Colour.

How to make an etching | National Museums Liverpool · National Museums Liverpool

Lesson

Where tone comes from when there is no colour at all.

One ink, then two, then two overprinted to make a third.

A blue one-colour stamp of an aeroplane over clouds, with a magnified circle showing the fine hatched lines that make its shadows. — A stamp printed in one blue ink, with a close-up showing its shading is only lines set closer or further apart. From far away the lines read as tone.

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Question 1, locked
A designer spends an afternoon working on a poster with all the colour taken away. What does the lesson say this forces them to do?
- Rely on texture and soft gradients to fill the gaps
- Solve the picture with value, spacing and shape
- Choose a brighter colour once they add it back
- Add more detail so the image still feels rich
Question 2, locked
You look at a hatched engraving from a metre away, then from thirty centimetres. What does the lesson say you will see?
- Separate lines at a metre, a flat tone up close
- Separate lines at both distances
- A flat tone at a metre, lines up close
- A flat grey tone at both distances
Question 3, locked
A hatched illustration is shrunk for a small risograph print, and the marks merge into mud. What does the lesson tell you to do?
- Find where marks stop separating and design above it
- Swap the hatching for a smooth gradient before printing
- Print it on newsprint instead, where hatching holds up
- Add a second ink so the tones stay apart when small

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Elsewhere in the library

A whole airline in twenty-two by thirty millimetresMember