Is it a Lithograph, or is it a Lithograph?

Almost all commercial printing that we see today is done using the process called lithography. For the art buyer, distinguishing between an original lithograph and a four-color reproduction is not simply a question of semantics. Depending, naturally, upon the quality of the artist, the former may have real value. Regardless of the quality of the artist, the latter is always worth very little.

To fully appreciate the meaning of the term original lithograph, it is important to understand just how one is produced. To determine if a print is an original, you must closely examine how the ink has been applied to the paper. This can be somewhat difficult with the naked eye, but can easily be done with a magnifying glass or jeweler's loupe.

Process lithography always begins with a photograph of something. It can be a photograph of an original painting, a landscape, or a new car. In a laboratory the photograph is separated by a special camera into the four basic color elements which are red, yellow, blue and black. A negative is then made for each color. In the print shop the four color negatives are used to produce four printing plates. The structure of the images on these plates is that of mechanically spaced dots. These plates are then mounted on a four-color press and all four colors are printed simultaneously. It is possible to proceed from the photograph to the finished product in two days. In viewing a print produced in the above manner through a magnifying glass, the four standard- colored inks will appear as dots neatly arranged in rows. This tells you the plates were made photo-mechanically, and not by an artist's hand.

By contrast, each plate used in the printing of an original lithograph has been hand drawn by the artist. In viewing the product of this process under the magnifying glass, the colors will appear either as a continuous tone, or as very irregular, oddly shaped, colored dots. In all cases this reflects the artist's various methods and tools. As many as fifty different colors may be used in one work, each one requiring a separate plate. The artist specially mixes every one of the inks for an original print and the printing process is similar to paint being blended and layered on a painting.

During the production of an original lithograph, the artist is directly involved in a hands-on manner, drawing each plate, choosing and mixing each ink and approving each color as it comes from the press. A single plate for an original lithograph may require twenty minutes or twenty hours of an artist's time, depending upon its complexity. A lithograph with forty-one colors, or forty-one plates, could very well require 200 hours of the artist and printer's time.

The Art Of Serigraphy

Serigraphy, also known as screen printing, is one of the four available to the artist. The other three are relief, intaglio, and planography. Relief print making is done from a raised image on a surface such as wood block printing; intaglio, from a recessed image in a surface such as etchings or engravings and planography from a grease-water relation on a surface such as lithography. Relief, intaglio and planography all print from a surface. Serigraphy prints through a surface. It is a stencil process. In serigraphy's simplest form a fine screen is stretched tautly and attached to a frame. The non-printing areas of the screen mesh are blocked out with a glue-like substance, leaving the printing areas open and clear. The frame is then laid flat on a table and attached on one side by means of hinges. The screen may now be raised and lowered. Printing is accomplished by raising the screen positioning a sheet of paper on the table beneath, and lowering the screen on to it. A bead of ink is poured along one edge of the screen-mesh and pulled across the face of the screen by means of a squeegee, forcing the ink through the open areas of the mesh and depositing it on the paper underneath. The screen is now raised, the paper removed another sheet inserted and printed. Once the determined number of sheets have been printed, the screen is cleaned of ink and blockout and becomes ready for use again. A serigraph is usually built up of several applications of color and for each application the described procedure is repeated.

The Making Of Bark Paper

This is how the bark paper is manufactured still to this day. First, men go to the woods to find "jonote" trees for the dark brown paper or "xalama limón" for the white paper or "mora" for a light silvery brown color. (These last two are hard to come by due to over-use, but the jonote trees re-seed themselves incredibly well.) They use a machete to make cuts and then peel long strips of bark off the tree. The strips are then tied into bundles and carried back home. Although the bark can grow back, it will never be good for paper again. In order to prepare the bark, paper-makers boil it in a huge vat together with wood ash and lime. This takes 6-8 hours and may even be left overnight. When the fibers can be pulled apart, a long, flat board is set out, and the strips of bark are placed on it in a grid pattern within rectangular outlines. The artisans then take a specially shaped stone - like a small brick with finger grooves on the side - and pound the bark until it is all evenly spread out. The pounding from San Pablito echoes across the mountains and can be heard miles away. Where most paper is made into pulp and then shaped, here the pulping and the shaping are one and the same process. Several family members will work along one board together, helping each other and chatting as they work. The edges of the paper are then turned in to make an even edge and pounded in again. Then the entire board is leaned up against the wall in the sun and allowed to dry, while the folks go on to make more sheets. When the paper is dry it is peeled off the board. When there is bad weather, there is simply no making paper, and families will turn to beadwork or embroidery. In order to send the paper out to clients, they must take a bus from San Pablito to Pahuatlán an hour away, then another to Tulancingo - this time over a paved road. When the order is going by air freight or DHL, they must go to Mexico city - another 2 1/2 hours away. The whole process is incredibly labor intensive. An average person can only make about 10-15 sheets a day.