T1. 2024 Lithography Workshop [FULL – Waiting List]

Stone lithography is a technique developed in Germany in around 1798. With it, multiple copies of an image can swiftly be produced. Since its development and the parallel emergence of commercial applications, huge numbers of artists have shown an interest in this technique due to the distinctive creative process that it involves. Thanks to the artistic potential that it affords, stone lithography has survived through to today.

This workshop is aimed at anyone interested in lithography, printmaking techniques, drawing, painting and any graphic technique. No prior experience is required.

OBJECTIVES

• To gain a general insight into lithography as a technique and its artistic applications throughout history and today.
• To understand and control the processes involved in lithography at a chemical level, carefully monitoring each of the states of the matrix during and at the end of printing.
• To understand how the materials and tools are used and possible alternatives.
• To reflect on different methods for creating lithographic images: pencil, lithographic crayon, inks and washes.
• To understand how the inks behave when working with multiple matrices and colours. Modifications to inks and their drying times. The importance of good registration.
• To make small printed editions, controlling for the uniformity of the prints, assessing the outcomes, and rectifying problems.
• To know what safety measures to take in order to handle the materials properly and avoid hazards in the workspace. To know how a workspace should be designed and distributed in order to work efficiently, ensuring proper storage, and a well-organized space and products.
• To devise a personal project on the applications of lithography in contemporary printmaking.

PROGRAMME

Lithography is one of the most sensitive techniques, perfect for reproducing the subtle nuances of a drawing or painting. The participants will experiment with lithographic materials in order to gain an insight into the technique’s rich potential, and we will discuss how different creative variables can be incorporated in the process. An analysis will be made of the materials, tools and procedures used in the different stages of the process, paying close attention to each step involved in the application of the inks and oil-based media, the etching process, and the inking and printing stages.

Elena Carrasco (Cuenca, 1992)

After completing her studies at the University of Fine Art in Cuenca and carrying out exchange programmes with Eugeniusz Geppert University in Wroclaw, Poland, and “Alonso Cano” Faculty of Fine Art in Granada, Elena Carrasco decided to continue her training abroad. She did an internship at the Ecole Européenne Supérieure de l’Image in Angulem, France, where she began to specialize in printmaking and editions. She then travelled to Northern Ireland where, thanks to a grant, she was able to work on personal projects at Seacourt Print Workshop. It was then that she came to focus on lithography as a technique.

Two years later, in 2018, she travelled to New Mexico (USA) to take the printer training programme given by the Tamarind Institute, a centre specializing in lithography. She gained the necessary skills there to become a master printmaker and to collaborate with artists. On her return to Spain, she settled in Madrid and began to work at Antonio Gayo’s studio. She started to give training courses at different centres and art schools. At the same time, she trained as a ceramicist at the Escuela de Cerámica de la Moncloa in Madrid. Since then, she has combined these two disciplines and she researches different transfer methods onto ceramic surfaces, using lithography as her main resource

In 2023, she opened her own lithography studio, “La Litográfica”, where she gives classes from beginner to advanced level and makes printed editions for different artists. Her aim is to disseminate and conserve the origins of the technique and, through their adaptation, bring them into play with other contemporary art practices in order to foster greater interest in this technique and contribute to its continuance in art today.

Further information