For class today we took a visit to the art museum to take a look at some original prints from the 16th-19th century. We explored many of the different techniques used to create these prints such as woodcut, engraving, and etching. Woodcut is the oldest of the techniques we looked at, which involves carving away the negative space of a design and all the area left raised would be covered in ink. Woodcut has some disadvantages though, such as not being able to use cross-hatching and not being able to have varying widths within the same line. The next technique developed eliminated those problems, which is the process of engraving. This involves using a special tool called a burin, which has a beveled tip so the amount of pressure applied would allow for varying line thickness. Also instead of wood, engravings used a metal sheet which would be first carved and then put into a bath of acid which would deepen the lines, and the rest of the plate was protected by a layer of varnish coating. Ink would then be rubbed into these lines and the rest of the plate would be cleaned off so ink only remained in these lines. The plate would then be pressed into the paper, leaving a distinctive plate mark. The final technique we looked at was etching, which is a process similar to engraving in that it is also an intaglio. It also uses a metal sheet put into a bath of acid and then ink rubbed into the lines, but the process of creating these lines is very different. Rather than a burin, etchings use a thin, sharp needle which creates a sketch-like effect rather than the defined lines a burin would create. The lines are not as precise as in engravings and often waver.