Three Level Stones :D

This makes me very happy.

   After the last time I grained, with no success, I was convinced I was missing a piece of the graining puzzle. It turns out I was, but it was only a matter of seeing the problem from the other side. I think I have the gist of it now.

   I'm so lucky because my excellent teacher Rebekah from my class at Zygote last summer is willing to help me long distance. And I'm talking really long distance, because she is currently in the middle of a two month long artist's residency in Taiwan. So bless her heart twice.

    I wrote to her with my questions about graining and she sent back three whole sets of drawings that detail graining patterns and which one to use under certain circumstances. That was my ticket.

     Today, we started fresh with two different stones. I now have a student working with me who is a true problem solver. That is another piece of luck, a couple times over, because he can think and he is tall and strong, two things that I am not. Litho takes quite a bit of muscle, and it sure was nice to have someone to take turns with. And to help carry heavy tubs of water.

     Admittedly, the stones were pretty level to begin with. By the time the previous images were grained out of the stones (one of them was very dark, so it took a while. I'll have to remember to keep better track of the cycles so we know what to expect), the smaller stone was level, but the big one on the bottom was low on the edges. I was kind of discouraged, because it wasn't like that when we started. We had made the stone worse! My student had to go and I sat down with a thump to think about it.

   Then came the aha moment. Instead of thinking that the edges were low, I should be thinking that the center was high.

   If you use two stones that have the same problem as graining partners, like two convex stones or two concave ones, used together they will even each other out. One of the stones I grained last time was convex, so I hauled it out and used it to grain Fred, the bigger stone on the left in the photo. I did three cycles of 100 grit, dried it off, and yay. A level stone.

     We'll polish them next week, and then we can start drawing. Two of the stones will be used for etching charts, one for crayon and one for tusche. My student gets to draw on Fred.

    It's slow progress, but we're getting there. I just need to remember to look at things from the other side.

You win some, you lose some

   The good news is, the portable graining station works just fine. I found a tray with a lower profile lurking in a cupboard, which suits me better because I don't have to lift the stones so high to get them out of the tray. 

     The bad news is, after about 2 hours of graining, I still don't have a level stone. And the worst part is, I think I might have a wedge shaped stone on my hands. 

    These two are my fifth and sixth experience with graining. It is has never been an easy task. I'm hoping that practice makes perfect.

    I'm considering using a much smaller stone to grain these next time, instead of using them together. Maybe then I can focus on the areas that are high and stop reducing the low areas. 

    I'm also thinking about offering extra credit to certain students (ones with muscle, stamina and a knack for detail work) in exchange for graining labor. Would that be fair?

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.

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 :)