Lithography

Lithography is a printing method where a drawing is made on a limestone, lito plate or lito film and then transfered to paper. Lithography comes from ancient greek ”lithos” meaning ”stone” and ”graphein” meaning ”to write”. The technique was invented by Alois Senefelder in 1789 and the colourlithography in 1837. This method of printing is based on the fact that oil and water does not mix.
A drawing is painted in a paint with fat texture, usually oil based crayons. The drawing is then coated with rubber on the places not covered by paint. The paint is then washed of with turpentine and moisture is added to the stone which sticks to the parts of the stone not covered by paint. The stone is coated with a final printing color which sticks to the parts that is not covered by water. Finally a paper is pressed towards the surface of the stone in a lithograph printing press and the final print is created.