“Never give up and keep trying” was my motto this morning. And its paid off as finally I got a result, maybe not the best print I’ve done but are great start. So what is Kitchen Litho? A very brief answer is by using ingredients found in your kitchen you etch into aluminium foil which can then be inked up and run through a press to produce a print.

My Material List included:

Aluminium Foil, masking tape, Grease – Soap, Butter, Litho pencil, Litho crayon, oil pastel, Coke, veggie oil, etching ink, paper

So I produced my first sample plate by drawing with various greases onto the foil, then etching it with coke and inking it up. Here is my first attempt after inking up the plate.

Well it was a complete disaster………

Ok, so that was a big fail. Assessment was that the image seemed to etch into foil but I needed to work on inking up. Also I needed to use more water when inking and try more passes to get more ink on plate.  Also maybe my paper was too wet.

So another attempt:

Well things weren’t going too well but I did manage to get an image on paper. So I played around doing experiments changing the variables.  I considered that I might be etching it for too long and and that I was not wiping back the ink enough. Sooooo after another attempt, and another, and another. Finally I was got results, a cleaner image.

On this flower I used only litho pencil and soap. The area that was very dark was where I used the soap, I think I need to experiment with this application.

So after some more experimenting I was getting results. A couple of the things I will change is the etching time, reduce it too only a few secs, try wiping back ink more and to only apply small amounts of ink each time. And soak paper but not too wet.

Ok, with all this in mind I had another attempt…..here is the inked foil plate…

and the print….

And then I did some more…….

Yaaaahhhhhooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!

Not perfect but man I’m pretty happy with result.  🙂