Lithography
Bookmarks lithography-printed from a stone carrying a picture drawn by the artist.
Lithography is the type of graphic art in which an artist creates an image to be printed on a polished surface of a limestone slab with a brush or pen in oily ink or with a greasy lithographic crayon. Lithography is characterized by a greater freedom for an artist’s expression of their ideas: using a surface almost like paper, an artist is free to employ any types of technique, such as hatching in soft pencil, thin smooth lines in pen, broad brushwork and washes with a brush over pencil, scratches in a dark ground, and other artistic devices.
Thereafter a stone is etched with acid and thoroughly washed with water and turpentine to remove excessive ink. The picture remains on a stone because grease has penetrated into its pores. In the process of printing an artist alternates moistening a stone and covering it in ink. As grease and water do not mix, the moistened portions of a stone do not receive ink, so it covers only the greasy parts of a drawing. Finally, a special machine forces paper into contact with the stone and thus an imprint is made.
Each impression is original and is of its own artistic value. The number of copies produced depends on the number of imprints that an artist finds to be of adequate quality. No additions to the picture on the stone that has been treated with acid can be made. The stone is polished anew and the artist is faced with a blank sheet as it was in the beginning.
Lithography is the type of graphic art in which an artist creates an image to be printed on a polished surface of a limestone slab with a brush or pen in oily ink or with a greasy lithographic crayon. Lithography is characterized by a greater freedom for an artist’s expression of their ideas: using a surface almost like paper, an artist is free to employ any types of technique, such as hatching in soft pencil, thin smooth lines in pen, broad brushwork and washes with a brush over pencil, scratches in a dark ground, and other artistic devices.
Thereafter a stone is etched with acid and thoroughly washed with water and turpentine to remove excessive ink. The picture remains on a stone because grease has penetrated into its pores. In the process of printing an artist alternates moistening a stone and covering it in ink. As grease and water do not mix, the moistened portions of a stone do not receive ink, so it covers only the greasy parts of a drawing. Finally, a special machine forces paper into contact with the stone and thus an imprint is made.
Each impression is original and is of its own artistic value. The number of copies produced depends on the number of imprints that an artist finds to be of adequate quality. No additions to the picture on the stone that has been treated with acid can be made. The stone is polished anew and the artist is faced with a blank sheet as it was in the beginning.
