hi there! thanks for stopping by! just wanted to tell you that I enjoyed your work, especially your figure drawings.

samos

Hello

Thanks for the visit to my site and the comments on my work.  I really appreciate it alot.  No my real name is not scotty but Deb.  The scotty is from our email address and I haven't figured out how to change that on this site.

Working full time and doing the art has become a challenge lately because I am becoming much busier with my art.  I am trying to build it up so that I can at least go to a part time situation but don't know when I will be able to manage that.  But I am so much further than I was even 3 years ago.  But you just have to start entering shows, etc.  Can't just make art and store it under the bed like I did for so many years.

Got to take a risk and get out there.  Its great.  Good luck!  And good to have a friend on this site who also understands the middle school minds! 

Thanks for the heads up on the You Tube tutorial.  They made it look really easy but I noticed that the prints they were doing didn't look a whole lot like lithographs.  They were more graphic in nature without the details and halftones.  It was cool though, and seemed much less picky than what I do.  I've never tried it on a regular Zinc plate, which is what they said they were using.  From what little chemistry I know, I can't figure our how they got the silicone to bond to the plate.  Maybe I'll post a blog and ask.

I use aluminum as the plate.  Step flashing is easy to get at any hardware store and tapes really well into a sketch book so you can carry it easily protected anywhere.  What's really important that they don't show in the YouTube is the plate prep.  You have to scrub it really well with TSP (which is a pre-paint prep.  There are two kinds:  The type with phosphates and the type without.  Use the type without.  The other won't work and it's really bad for the environment.)  Take one of those green kitchen scrubbies and scrub te snot out of the plate with the TSP until you get this gun-metal gray slurry.  The more, the better.  Rinse it with rubbing alcohol, then do it again and rinse it again.  The plate should no longer be shiny.  It should be a dull grey in color. Now it's ready to draw on.  Draw on it with any ball point pen (not a gel pen, but the old fashioned ball points. They are water soluble. Pentel makes the best cheapo pen for this sort of thing.)  Also, Sharpies are good and there are several types of pencils that work, but I can't remember which ones.  I'll have to get back to you on that.  Look at my site and you can see which lithographs I did with pen vs pencil.  The sleeping girl and covered bridge were done with a pencil and it looks more like a real lithograph with half tones. The tree and dog were done with ball point.  It takes a while to get used to drawing on flash aluminum with ball point because it's so slick.  It's like walking on ice. You can easily erase using a Q-tip dipped in rubbing alcohol. Make sure you don't touch the plate with your hands.  Any oil on the late will screw up the ground when it's time to lay it down.

When you prep your plate and do your drawing, let me know, and I'll go on from here.   Piece of advice:  Don't spend hours on a drawing until you get good at this.  Nothing is worse than losing hours of work to a blind plate.  It's worse than a computer crash.

Have fun!!

-Marcia 

Hi Artfitz!

What would you like to know about waterless?  Have you tried it yet?  I think I've made every mistake known to man doing it.  It's a cool process.  I like the fact that I can reproduce a drawing that took me 150 hours to draw that may be worth something. I also really think it's cool that all the maerial can come from my local, funky hardware store. 

If you do wish to try it and want to use step flashing as the plate, make sure you prep it right.  Nothing is worse than putting n all that time on a drawing and have it print blind.

 -Marcia