FEATURE
Lithography
An image is painted, drawn or stencilled onto a slab of limestone or a metal plate (often aluminium) with oily materials, including greasy crayons and pencils, special ink called tusche, and photochemical transfers.
TECHNIQUE
Lithography
An image is painted, drawn or stencilled onto a slab of limestone or a metal plate (often aluminium) with oily materials, including greasy crayons and pencils, special ink called tusche, and photochemical transfers.
The image is treated with gum arabic and nitric acid to fix the image areas from the non-printing areas.
When inking up the stone or metal with a roller, the surface is kept wet, so that the oil-based ink only sticks to the image area. Paper is then placed down and the stone or plate is run through a press.
More printmaking techniques
More Features
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Artist talk: SooMin Leong
In this video presentation, SooMin discusses her practice, the importance of landscape in her images and how walking can change how we experience the world.
Daydreaming through decoration
“I felt like I was in multiple spaces at the same time – the studio, my source material, my paintings – and I really lost myself in the process of making. I had this epiphany that if I inhabited my paintings long enough then the experience of looking at them would contain the dysphoria I felt, because that’s how art works, it’s a sort of a mirror.”
Hard ground
A traditional technique in etching. After degreasing the surface of the plate, hard ground is rolled over the surface.