It has been great to be back running workshops again. And recently I an a polyester plate lithography workshop at The Forge in Digswell.
Polyester Plate Lithography is a non-toxic form of lithographic printing. Like traditional lithography, the process takes advantage of the fact that grease and water repel each other. When oily printing ink is applied to a plate it will only stick to the drawn/painted greasy areas.
It is a great process for taking experimental drawing, painting, and mark techniques through to producing interesting and individual plates and prints. The plate does not give you quite the same tonal range and variations that you can achieve with traditional stone lithography, but it does enable you to get some lovely lithographic marks.
We worked with a variety of wet and dry media producing painterly strokes, ink washes, repeating textural marks, through to more delicate or sharp details using pens, pencils, and crayons. You can also incorporate digital and photographic processes too.
Another option to try is Mokulito, a Japanese alternative which uses wooden plates instead of stone or polyester. You can get some wonderful grain and textures with wood, but the trade-off is that it is far less stable than polyester or stone, therefore yielding much shorter editions that are much more variable. Every process presents different advantages and challenges.
There are some samples from the polyester course on my Instagram feed here.