Litho News

   It was another busy week. There is a surprising amount of paperwork that comes with the beginning of the semester. That is kind of new. I used to be able to count on coasting with no grading for a few weeks. Assessment duties have made that less true.
    So, I've only made meager progress this week, both on setting up the litho shop and at painting.

   Starting with litho, this is our stone library, minus Jabba (size discrimination!), temporarily housed on a counter in my classroom. I have two picked out to start graining, named Lilly and FeeFee. Both are 11"x13". Because they will both be grained at the same time, against each other, I'll end up with two stones ready for drawing. One will be used to make an etching chart and the other will be a drawing of some sort. I might do that torus knot again. We'll see.

   My other bit of progress was that I got my grits in order. We are so lucky to have so many of the traditional materials on hand that are still used in the Green Litho process. The grits are iron filings, ground to different levels of fineness. The lower numbers are more coarse than the higher numbers. The #100 will be used first to level the stone. That is the most time consuming part. After the stone is level, it is just a matter of a few cycles at each grit to polish the surface. 

   I'm not crazy about these shakers, but, I got the lot for $2 at the Dollar Store. I'm worried they will be a bit tippy. They'll get us started, but we might have to invest in something a little fancier for the job.

    I've never gone past #220, but I saw a litho this summer in Cleveland that had a texture like velvet, it was so fine. The #5 on the end is much finer than the others. I'm looking forward to seeing if I can get a texture like the one I saw at the Cleveland Museum of Art. I sure with I had bought a print of that litho.

    Tomorrow, one of my jobs is to see how level Lilly and FeeFee are. Then on Tuesday, we'll see if my graining setup works.