Stone Lithography June 2015

Drawing is key to great printmaking. This was the second Lithography workshop in Whanganui run by Alexis Neal, master printmaker— I was lucky to take part.

My sketch was made with wood block prints of shaped MDF, wooden doweling and small Rimu wooden balls rolled around in the ink. I like the sketch a lot... it was layered over the top of a recycled White on White silk screen print left over from the Paradigm Shift series. This gave very interesting textures, I actually prefer the sketches I made to the finished litho prints because of the layers and textures.

I then printed the same image with the inked up wooden objects onto the prepared litho stone. It takes about 3 days to process the litho drawing and set it into the stone using gum arabic, acid, powder, oil base ink and water. Time, measured chemical and handling was crucial to the success of the image on the stone.

One of the things about printmaking we have to consider is that the image drawn or etched onto the print surface (stone, copper, wood, zinc...) has to be a mirror image of the finished article. Especially typographic elements. As you can see here I did not mirror my image on the stone but wish I had as it completely changed the dynamic of the finished prints.

The sketch was my preferred print selected for the Central Print Council show titled In the Frame at the Taylor Jensen Gallery, Palmerston North. 4th – 26 August 2015.