One of the assignments for Jay Harriman's Intro to Polyester Lithography was for each student to create a self-portrait in the same size format, and we will print our collective prints onto sheets to create a group portrait.

For mine, I wanted to capture the many styles I work in, so I gridded my face and would apply mono-lineweight to some areas, halftones to others, realistic ball-point pen as well as a loose wash using carbon black acrylic paint.

The final effect is definitely kind of silly and maybe a little amateur-ish.

Below you can see an in-progress group portrait with four of the 7 artists having printed:

For years I have admired the work of Cincinnati artist Caroline Williams. Per pen-and-ink drawings as well as her engravings helped capture a Cincinnati transforming during the mid-twentieth century.

For this polyester litho plate I used a Bic ballpoint pen to create very small, gestural marks.

 

 I started taking a polyester lithography class at Tigerlily Press. So for the class I drew this scene inspired by our Yosemite wedding many years ago:

The drawing was made with Sharpie on a polyester plate — the marker will attract ink while the wet polyester will not accept ink during the printing process.

Ugh, so I did some test prints and I think I was in a crabby mood. I started messing up, got in the weeds and went home to sulk. First print was okay, second some ghost fingerprints emerged, then the third print was really bad (I used a gel toothpaste to clean the plate and worried I messed up the image).