Intaglio is all about the picking up of ink from fine patterns in a plate. You prepare an intaglio plate for printing by rubbing ink into the grooves and then carefully wiping ink off the top layer. This is in contrast to relief printing where the raised areas are inked.

Initially I prepare and illustrate a glass master. This is grained with fine silica between two glass sheets, rubbed in a figure 8 then washed off. Then a combination of UV opaque pencil and ink are used to create my gargoyle image.

Then the photo polymer plate (solar plate). This is made by laying my glass master onto the photo polymer and exposing the plate under a UV light (or the sun). It selectively hardens parts of the plate where the light hits. After exposing the image, also a screen with random noise is applied to make sure even the black areas have texture. Finally the plate is washed out in water and then left to harden in the sun.

Now we rub in Akua water based ink, so much better for you and the environment that oils!! Then rub off the excess surface ink with old phone book pages.

Finally print your image onto lightly dampened paper using the Yellow Xpress and you have your final artwork :) (Thanks to Homeprint)

Cheers
  Dave