Litho Workshop

   This week, I'm attending a lithography workshop that promises to teach us how to make the litho process less toxic. Which is a very good thing since the traditional methods include things like asphaltum which contains asbestos! That's only one of the nasty things included in the process. The teacher made a joke about how if we learn these methods, maybe we won't lose our teeth. That made everybody laugh, but she explained that printmakers often lost them because they used to taste the nitric acid to see if it was strong enough to etch the stone. Yikes!
    So, I'm grateful to be here and for what I will learn. This is a picture of another student graining her stone, and mine along with it:

   The stones have to be absolutely level so that they don't crack under the pressure of the press during printing. That would be a real loss, since the stones are no longer being mined. If you have any litho stones, hang on to them, because they are precious.

    This shop was gifted many stones that had been used as paving stones in someone's yard. (Sheesh.) So, they are in rough shape and we spent the whole day getting them ready for drawing. 

    To grain a stone, one stone is rotated on top of another with a layer of iron grit in between. Since both stone are grained during this process, we took turns at the job. I think we probably did 10 rounds each, rinsing and reapplying grit between each round. And we aren't quite done! Tomorrow we will follow up with two rounds each of two finer grits. 

      This is the image I think I am going to use on my stone. I'm learning a marimba piece right now called A Cricket Sang and Set the Sun, a really beautiful and challenging (for me, at least) solo by Blake Tyson. The title came from an Emily Dickinson poem, about the crickets telling everyone it was time to stop working and start the evening. Ever since I read it, I've been mulling over doing an image about it.

     So, this cricket is supposed to be singing, except I don't really think it looks like it, yet. It's mouth is open, but it is hard to tell in this photo. Maybe it needs an instrument. Or a backup band :)