Living Prints® Lithograph On-line

Drawing on aluminum plate

There are several ways to make a fine art lithograph besides those that use limestone "plates" (actual 2-to-3-inch thick slabs of naturally-occurring limestones, marble and onyx). We use metals and the most common is aluminum. It is paper-thin, specially textured on one-side similar to a grained lithograph stone. Zinc and copper also have lithographic properties for lithographic drawing and printing.

The surface of an aluminum plate is uniform gray, its color perfectly neutral, flat and with a fine textured surface like the finest sandpaper--you might think almost no texture at all. As with a grained lithograph stone, you are not supposed to touch the surface. The metal is somewhat sensitive to the oil that is naturally on fingers and may make smudge-marks-though not as sensitve as limestone is.

Lithograph pencils, crayons and sticks made for lithography are for use on aluminum plates, too. There are actually more drawing materials for metal than stone. The fine arts of drawing and lithography share a long tradition in printmaking, but hand drawing directly on metal plates is not practiced as much today are the faster, easier photographic processes. People can create imagery on transparent plastic and transfer these to light-sensitive aluminum plates. Artists who use computers discovered how to put computer graphics in lithography by laser-printing on a transparency that can be used on photo-sensitive aluminum plates.

The snapshot is from a 1982 session at Winn Press in Seattle. I was commissioned (along with nine other artists) to create 10-color lithographs on large-sized aluminum plates. I used a stencil (cut from a used plate) and smudged around its edge with soft, #1 litho crayon. In the lower picture I am lifting the metal stencil. The same technique can be used on stone. You would not find a printing house with lithograph stones of this great size in my region, nor the people who could print them!

This large-print project was commissioned by the Seattle Sheraton Hotel. If you are ever staying in Seattle at this hotel, you can see these artists' lithographs in the rooms and in parts of the lobby spaces.

The still images above were taken from my videotape archive, a collection of un-edited videos collected from around the world under the title Artists Do Offset.

If you have any questions, please contact Professor Ritchie.

©1999 Bill H. Ritchie, Jr. ritchie@seanet.com