With this information we want to give an explanation of the graphic techniques fro those who do not know anything about engraving,with the hope you will understand better and appreciate the richness contained in this art form.To make an engraving the artist need a copper plate preferably the rolle and polished red copper,this is a soft metal which enables the implication of many tools,dry tip,graver,or a sharp steelpen.The copper can also be attacked with acids as we as greasy inks.The soft cutting resulting a hollow created by tool or acid must be filled with ink.The metal plate is covered on both sidea with a protective varnish.The artist with a tip or a sharp pencil draws on the varnish,leaving the copper bare where he makes his drawing.When the drawing is completed the artist plunges the copperplate in a nitric acid solution for the etching.The depts of the etching will depend on the acid dilution or the duration of the copperplate inside the acid solution.The acid will attack the copper surface where the drawing is made,but not others which covered by varnies.Then the varnish is removed from the copperplate with benzene or turpentine.The plate is inked with a roll or puppets often with the fibgers,so that all cuttungs in the metal are full,then the ink excess must be taken out with some mushin and the finishing with the grease of the handpalm.This is very delicate operation since the parts having to appcon in blank must be appaire absolutely cleaned but without taking the ink out of the drawing cuttings.The plate is now ready to be printed.A piece of handmade paper a little wet is put on to the plate covered with a piece of soft futre and a piece of wood or metal.This all go under the handpress when presses for several minutes the paper is slowly taken of the copper plate and the drawing is transferred on the paper.An original engraving is made and the artist only have to sign and to number the work of art.An engraving is never a mass production but only a very limited number of prints from the Affandi engravings only 12 prints are made every prints is numbered in the left lower corner and signed by the artist in the right lover corner.

History and usage

 (a) etching needle, (b) scraper, (c) and (d) burnishers, (e) graver, (f) scooper, (g) scraper for mezzotints, (h) stipple graver, (i) roulette for mezzotints, (j) shading tool for mezzotints, (k) roulette for mezzotints, (l) dry-point graver, (m) hammer, (n) dabber for applying the 'ground', (o) brushes for applying varnish (p) calliper compassesFor the printing process, see printmaking. For the Western art history of engraving prints, see old master print and line engraving In antiquity, the only engraving on metal that could be carried out is evident in the shallow grooves found in some jewellery after the beginning of the 1st Millennium B.C. The majority of so-called engraved designs on ancient gold rings or other items were produced by chasing or sometimes a combination of lost-wax casting and chasing.However the use of engraving to cut decorative scenes or figures into glass vessels appears as early as the first century AD[1], continuing into the fourth century CE at urban centres such as Cologne and Rome[2], and appears to have ceased sometime in the fifth century. Decoration was first based on Greek mythology, before hunting and circus scenes became popular, as well as imagery drawn from the Old and New Testament[2]. It appears to have been used to mimic the appearance of precious metal wares during the same period, including the application of gold leaf, and could be cut free-hand or with lathes. As many as twenty separate stylistic workshops have been identified, and it seems likely that the engraver and vessel producer were separate craftsmen[1].In the European Middle Ages goldsmiths used engraving to decorate and inscribe metalwork. It is thought that they began to print impressions of their designs to record them.

 From this grew the engraving of copper printing plates to produce artistic images on paper, known as old master prints in Germany in the 1430s. Italy soon followed. Many early engravers came from a goldsmithing background. The first and greatest period of the engraving was from about 1470 to 1530, with such masters as Martin Schongauer , Albrecht Dürer , and Lucas van Leiden.Thereafter engraving tended to lose ground to etching, which was a much easier technique for the artist to learn. But many prints combined the two techniques - although Rembrandt's prints are generally all called etchings for convenience, many of them have some burin or drypoint work, and some have nothing else. By the nineteenth century, most engraving was for commercial illustration.Before the advent of photography, engraving was used to reproduce other forms of art, for example paintings. Engravings continued to be common in newspapers and many books into the early 20th century, as they were cheaper to use in printing than photographic images. Engraving has also always been used as a method of original artistic expression.