Lithography (original) (raw)
22 November 2006 @ 11:35 pm
I've been working on this for months. I started it back in May. It took a couple of months to print the three colors. Then my dad had some health trouble, so it took a while before I was able to go out and collect it, since I did it in his studio (and the light blue still wasn't quite dry!). And then it sat on my desk for a couple of months while I put off titling it. Basically, I'm a putz.
Printing went fairly smoothly. It took some time to get the light blue mixed right, and the dark blue didn't print as dark as I'd hoped (we had to load the ink on pretty heavily), but that's because I didn't draw it dark enough.
This was the first artwork I had done in years.
12 November 2006 @ 10:42 am
What are the different media besides stone to draw your image on. And how do processing and printing differ?
25 October 2006 @ 09:03 pm
So... the Atlanta College of Art print shop has become the Savannah College of Art and Design print shop over the course of the summer. Needless to say, not everything is "dialed" in, and therefore etching is not available. Normally this isn't such a horrible thing because I love lithography (I'm in advanced printmaking classes only now, so I can go in any area I want), except the litho god must be really upset with me, or something.
I decided to add a second color to a stone litho drawing I had done spring 2006 semester. I did the drawing, but when I started printing I was getting specks throughout my prints, and they worsened as I pulled more prints. We did a wet wash and it didn't help. We even added a little mag and scrubbed a little (my teacher is a master lithographer from Tamrind). He advised that I just continue the print and move on to the second color, the one I had printed 30 of in the spring 06 semester. I thought, yah! It'll be great. I've already printed a consistent edition of it, so I know how it prints. THE SAME THING HAPPENED! At this point we determined there was some sort of contamination. I threw out my litho sponges, and scrubbed the bowls, but I still had problems. I decided to just let it go.
So, I grain one of my two stones, and do a beautiful image. I love it. I'm proud of it. I got new sponges, scrubbed the bowls with grit soap, and rinsed them really really well. Cleaned the ink slab, scraped the leather roller, cleaned the ink knives and moved to a different press. Those DAMN speckles started appearing again. But, I quit while I was ahead. I caught them early, before they were distracting and decided I had to figure out what the problem was before wasting a beautiful image and bfk paper.
Today I started printing, but instead I used a rubber roller. Instead of speckles it started filling in. Ok, wet-wash here I come... Oh no! It's not going away. It turns out that my ghost image was appearing. GRAHHHHH! this has never happened to me before, nor have the weird speckles until this quarter. When I grained the stone the previous image wasn't visible when it was completely dry. On the plus side, though, there were no speckles, so we can safely say it's the leather rollers that are contaminated. (they were neglected over the summer... Poor poor rollers.)
I'm just upset because I was going to use this image to counter etch and keep a portion as a constant for several prints.
My instructor says that this just sometimes happens, and now I understand why people get frustrated with lithography. I hadn't had any problems with stone lithography for a year... I guess my time was bound to come up.
But... I realized as I was pulling a couple prints, even with the damn ghost image, that I got three decent prints of it, and that I could put the part that I wanted to remain consistent onto a pronto plate and do a pronto plate transfer...
A lot of interesting process notes here, (silicon waterless lithography, toner lithography, palm presses, lots of stuff.)
http://duke.usask.ca/~semenoff/Home.html
(cross posted to 
printmaking
Anyone ever print t-shirts? I mean, lithography-wise? My dad just did some and they seemed to turn out great. Just the regular black ink.
I recently finished my first experience with printmaking last semester and loved it. I was only able to finish a few projects but managed to experiment with some new processes. One of them is posted below the cut.
Here are some lithos that I did on an aluminum plate. I can't remember what number crayon I used. It's on the larger side, I used an entire sheet of Utrecht paper to get it printed. It's probably my favorite litho of the ones I did. When I get pictures of my others I'll post those as well. It was a really incredible experience to work with lithography and hope to do it again someday.
The fruits of last night's labors:
Two lithographs, the first with four runs on tan paper, the second without the yellow layer on white paper.
I was very surprised with this whole process because it went so well for me, which is not always the case when I do litho. I did the blue and the pink runs together on the same stone by selectively inking with brayers, which really cut my time in half.
The only issue was, the stone with my key image literally started falling apart when I put it on the press! Some of our stones have granite backings, and when I picked up the stone to put it on the press the limestone lifted off hte granite and started crumbling. I decided to run it through the press anyway and it cracked a little but the cracks didn't show. I don't think I could print it again though.
I'm not as pleased with this print as I could have been, I think the yellow is off and I don't like the primary color effect, but I'm still learning the color process and this was a big step.
So quick question:
I'm printing a 4 color litho later on today...
should I make my registration marks on my paper before or after I calender it? i can't use the press until later so I'm planning to go ahead and mark everything but I wasn't sure if the marks would stretch out of place if i did.
When I was taking the Lithography class last semester I hated it and was going to stick with etchings and relief, and other methods. Well, I tried it again this semester, on my own, for my advance printmaking class, and all I want to do is stone lithography now. And with graduation in a year I've been making plans to get a table top etching press and some ferric chloride and all that stuff, but now I am wishing I had a feasible way to do lithography. I guess if I stay in Atlanta there is the possibility of the Atlanta Printmakers studio getting up and running? Or I can pay the studio fee and use my school's lab. Oy.
But yah, I love litho now, and am even thinking Tamarind could be a possibility for me. Maybe the problem last semester was that I wasn't connected to my imagery.
When I get some digital pictures I'll post my latest litho. It's my favorite piece I've done thus far in any printmaking class.