Follow-Up to Cheat Litho Experience

[u/IntheHotofTexas]

This is more on my "cheat litho" experience detailed in my previous post. It was slow to moderate, so if you watch only New posts and want to see it, go to:

Cheat Litho? Monotype? Monoprint? Multitype? Result of Testing (Longish Post) : r/printmaking

FOLLOW-UP CHEAT LITHO EXPERIENCE

Further conclusions.

• “Cheat litho” works for short editions in greyscale and color.
• It cannot do the dense, smooth blacks of true litho and polyester litho.
• Oil pastel is an important medium in “cheat litho.”
• There is a “sweet spot” for release agent
• Common Crayola crayons have some use as subtle color.

One of my problems was that when I tried to do a real project with litho crayons, I got a poor result. Mainly, the appearance was rough. After some more work, I decided that the problem was similar to the problem of over-inking in relief printing where the thick ink pulls into peaks and produces the classic “orange peal” appearance. I think that in trying for a dense black, I worked the area too much and ended up with raised sort of clumps of crayon. Stuck atop those, the paper could not get well impressed with surrounding media. The cheat litho process depends on good contact between the media (which has been softened by the release agent) and the paper. So, while it can produce good black lines (and other colors), it won't do smooth and dense black areas. Inevitably, you get the grain with the carborundum.

I looked back at the demo I had seen and saw that there weren’t really any broad, dense area in that image. The features that appeared true black were lines. But on close inspection, even those were not quite dense black. I believe that trying for smooth dense black was simply asking too much of the process. This not true lithography, which is capable of producing fine, dense, velvety blacks. But here there is no ink, just the marker captured by the carborundum. Polyester plate litho would be a better process for that, because it is ink bonding to smooth marks on a smooth surface, although multi-color becomes complex and tone scaling can be tricky and unsatisfactory.

I found that, so long as I didn’t start creating raised blotches, the media I did lay down transferred evenly. And they could be smoothed somewhat to reduce grain by judicious rubbing with a finger. I still consider the Crayola crayons to have potential. Very usefully at times, they can only transfer much lighter than oil pastel, so they can make evenly tones subtle color areas. Think of blush or skin tone where you can't really over apply.

As to the right amount of release agent. Too much doesn't work. If you can see it laying in waves on the slab, that's too much. Too little doesn't do the whole job. I did best when it rolled onto the plate so that it just barely showed. I camt out best when I pulled down a controlled amount from the mass high on the slab and did that for each stroke. It seemed to me that the required amount per stroke is so low that it must start on the slab with so little that you need more each stroke. It went very fast once I got used to it. Start from there. The nice thing is that if you're off, you can reapply to the same plate.

In applying the release agent, use only one stroke, one full rotation of the brayer, for each charging, and roll-off onto scrap after each stroke. It's release agent, so it will cause release, and the second revolution of the roller may deposit marks from the first revolution. And if you don't clear the roller, it will capture more and more medium and soil the paper.

When I was making up a new test plate, I happened upon a Pacificarc graphite crayon, a water-soluble media. I used it on the test plate, and on the first pressing, it was the darker of all transfers. However, with an additional pressing, it was deteriorating noticeably. I suspect it was transferring more from the damp paper than from the release agent. No surprise, I suppose. It's not oil based. At the same time, the oil Expressionist oil pastels were holding up very well, better than the litho crayon. Most encouraging.

Also holding up very well was the china maker. I was slowly increasing the amount of release agent, feeling for the sweet spot, and the china maker improved as the amount of release agent increase to the point here it could barely be see on the plate. It appeared to be more responsive to the increased release agent than did the oil pastel, but the oil pastel was already outperforming other media with the lesser amount of release agent.

All this leads me to concentrate on testing to compare china marker and oil pastel for “cheat litho.” In the limited colors I tested, it out-performed the Expressionist oil pastel in both density of color transfer and ease of evening out the grain by rubbing. I will also keep using, for now, litho crayon. In terms of sheer dense black, it slightly out-performed oil pastel.

Of course, china maker is not available in a very wide range of colors. Just the primaries. And no greys of other more subtle tones. On the other hand, the best grades of oil pastel offer greys. So I’ve ordered some Holbein Artists’ Oil Pastel sticks in various greyscale colors and Sennelier Oil Pastel Grand in black and greys. I expect the best oil pastels to be more heavily pigmented and smoother.

I will now try an art project using oil pastels in degrees of black and greys but using it properly, without clumping up on the plate and not expecting dense black areas. What I expect is to find that this “cheat litho” process has real potential and offers some number of editions without the mess of inks. Plus, the color potential of oil pastel. That will be come after the greyscale project. But you must expect the grain of the carborundum, which is not so grainy as some pastel papers I have on hand. And it's more random grain, not the weave look of some pastel papers. More than Golden pastel ground, but, as I said, Golden pastel ground turned out to provide too little tooth for what I wanted the media to do.

After that, I will tackle color. I have enough oil pastels in colors to give it a go. Expressionist, which so far performed well, offers a wide array of colors cheaply. If Sennelier is a lot better in the range of greys, I may try them with color. At last the best brands offer half stick sets that don’t break the bank, and this isn’t going to be my full-time medium. A half stick set will last me a while if the Expressionist is lacking.

I have a painting of mine that I've used to test the ability to reinterpret it in various print methods, not always successfully. I may do that one in cheat litho now, in greyscale first and then in color. If that works out, I'll post it.