Aquatint is a tonal printing process. The preparation for aquatint consists of a porous ground, usually created by sprinkling powdered rosin liberally and evenly over a copperplate and then heating the plate from below to liquefy the powder and fuse it to the copper. When this prepared copperplate is dipped into an acid etching bath, the minute irregularities in the ground allow the acid to bite into the plate in an overall pattern that, when inked, prints as tone.
An intaglio technique that produces effects similar to a watercolor wash, creating both even tones and/or tones with gradation or blending effects. The process entails adhering fine particles of resin to a metal plate as an acid resist. After the plate has been treated in an acid bath, the acid-resistant material is removed. The resulting etched, or bitten, surface is composed of textured areas rather than lines. Aquatint is often used in combination with other intaglio techniques.