Lithography

Lithography is a powerful medium capable of capturing a wide range of tonalities and textures. This medium translates well for artists who enjoy using charcoal or graphite, or working with brushes. Originally a commercial reproduction process, Lithography was first used by fine artists in the 20th century. Its creative borders were expanded by artists like Toulouse-Lautrec and Edward Munch, and later by Modern and Contemporary artists Robert Rauschenberg, Louise Bourgeois, and Vija Celmins. The process requires a high level of technical expertise, therefore artists will often work in tandem with a master-printer, like Robert Blackburn, Judith Solodkin, and June Wayne.

Lithography is known as a planographic printing process. This simply means that the printing surface is flat, unlike the Relief process where the ink sits on the raised areas, or Etching where the ink sits in the lowered areas. Lithography works by creating a greasy or oily image area and a non-oily negative area. The ink used in Lithography is oil-based and is attracted to the greasy image, while water is used to repel ink from the non-image areas. A block of limestone has traditionally been the preferred drawing surface, as the quality of the stone allows for a more subtle range of tonality and flexibility in printing. While limestones are reusable, they are not sustainable and can be time consuming to work with as they need to be painstakingly prepped before each use. More recently aluminum plates have become a popular working surface for Lithography. For a student learning the process for the first time, a plate offers a light weight and easy surface to practice with. Plates are also used in offset-Lithography, a similar method of commercial printing.