Venice Part 2
This post is about the lithographs in my hand printed book “In Venice”. The lithographs are printed directly from the stone. I hand coloured one using watercolour to be used as the frontispiece. The book was printed in an edition of just 15 copies and each book had a hand painted cover, featuring part of a wall of Tinteretto’s studio reflected in the canal. You can see images of the book on my website.
Corte del Paradiso, In Venice, lithograph
Ca' de Mosto, In Venice, lithograph
Campiello San Rocco, In Venice, lithograph
Rio de la Panda, In Venice lithograph
The text of the book tells how Whistler was forced into bankruptcy after a sensational libel trial against critic John Ruskin. He lost everything when costs were assigned to both parties. Whistler was saved by the Fine Arts Society who commissioned a series of etchings of Venice, which they could sell to their subscribers. The text of the book includes letters, a transcript of the trial, and quotes from some of Whistler’s writings. Based on my on-site sketches I selected 5 scenes to be used in the book.
The process of creating a lithograph is complicated, and entirely magical. Only one type of limestone from Bavaria is used. My stone was given to me by Bill Poole, and originally belonged to Fred Hagan. I drew on the stone in my studio with wax lithography crayons before transporting it to the Open Studio in Toronto. Over several days I developed the image on the stone in stages using a combination of Gum Arabic, Nitric acid and rosin. I then printed an edition of 25 copies of each illustration, on hand made Gampi Torinoko Japanese paper, on Open Studio’s large litho press, learning how to keep the stone at ‘just the right’ level of dampness and build up ‘just the right’ amount of greasy black ink to make a perfect print. I printed fifteen numbered prints for the book and 10 to sell separately. I learned this technique from my cottage neighbour, the late Hartwell Priest, when she was in her 90s. She studied in New York City under Hans Hoffman, and learned her lithography technique from George Miller in his loft studio on east 14th street, just off 5th Avenue. He printed for most of the well know artists in the United States in the 40s 50s and 60s.
After each print run was completed I ground the image off the surface of the stone and was ready to start again and make the next image.
The books have all sold, but there are lithographs available. The lithographs are signed and numbered. There is one complete set and several single lithographs still available.
Look under ‘Print Shop’ on my website to see the making of this work