Soft Ground

An etching technique in which the plate is covered with a ground that does not completely harden. A sheet of paper is laid over the ground and drawn on with a pencil; when the paper is lifted, the ground sticks to it somewhat unevenly and leaves an exposed line in the plate which looks like a pencil line in the final print. Materials with different textures (fabric, paper, found objects) can also be pressed into the soft ground and lifted off, removing particles of the ground and exposing the plate to the acid so that it will quite accurately reproduce the texture of the material. Distinguished from "hard ground."