Characteristics of Lithography
Most lithographic drawing materials are composed of some form of grease; tallow, beeswax, shellac, soap and lamp black. They include lithographic crayons or chalks, pencils, rubbing crayon, and liquid drawing ink known as tusche. Each material has its own unique and expressive quality and may be used to develop a broad range of mark making not possible in other graphic media.
Lithographic crayons and pencils are manufactured in a range from very soft and greasy through to being very hard and dry. As a consequence mark-making is potentially limitless and they can be used to great effect to develop drawings of varying character. Considerable detail and full range of tone from the subtlest grey to the densest black can be achieved. Rubbing crayon which is commonly applied to the surface of stone using rag may also achieve soft smudgy atmospheric effects similar to that found in charcoal drawing and a good example of its use can be seen in the print Quotidian by Donald Furst.
The liquid drawing ink known as tusche is favoured by many lithographers as it will dry and reticulate on the surface of the stone in the most astonishing manner, creating exaggerated web-like patterning on the surface of the stone. Scottish artist Elspeth Lamb and Australian artist Kaye Green are two artists who exploit this reticulation such that the quality of the drawing material itself becomes an intrinsic part of the creative development of the image. Applied on zinc and aluminium plate the same tusche may reticulate in other ways to form a texture that is sometimes described as Peau de Crapaud or toad-skin. Magically tusche can also be mixed with a variety of different solvents, including distilled water, turpentine and surgical spirit. The prints Skin and Ice by Jane Tyler employ spirit-based tusche that reticulates to create subtlety of mark and tonality that seems particularly apt for her way of working.
Test print showing crayon and wash
In the print Pursuit by Oliver Bevan layers of puddled tusche, crayon and ink drawing are built up on stone resulting in rich tone and texture and then scraped through with knife blades, hones and pumice; light is reintroduced with dynamic effect. Gum Arabic which is much used in the processing of stones and plates because of its desensitising property is also useful and acts in a similar manner to masking fluid in watercolour painting. Diluted with water, gum washes, sometimes known as Lo-Shu Washes enable negative or white line drawing seen against a dark back-ground. The Canadian artist Gene Chu has experimented considerably with this approach, combining it too with an unusual inking procedure that is akin to viscosity printing in intaglio.
Further processes of working in negative include manière noire where the image is developed using hones, pumice pencils and blades to lighten areas of an ink-ground first prepared on the stone. Through careful control and by applying varying pressure an image can thus emerge from the black background and will be seen in negative much in the same way that images are produced in mezzotint. Similarly in acid tint, drawing is achieved with the application of nitric acid which will quite literally burn into the ground to produce a range of tone similar to that seen in aquatint.