Life is what it is.

This is an exciting time for me. I am contacting different business and learning more about the graphics trade.

One thing I can tell you- I care about feedback. It won't hurt, either, I promise (Eight years of art critiques in art school gave me some tough skin) But I also know that input-and especially the kind you are not the most excited to hear-is the kind you can benefit from most. I will not lie to you. I know what I do, and I do what I do well. But I am trained as an artist. I know that there is nothing that compares to the wisdom of experience, and many of you that I am working with out there have been in the monument industry for years. There are many things that I have yet to learn. My success as a graphic designer is contingent on my ability to learn from you.

That being said, sometimes coming from another discipline can offer some fresh perspective. I did lithography in grad school. Lithography put me through the ringer on more than one occasion. It is the hardest medium I have done to date, and will probably be the hardest medium I will ever face. There were so many variables. There was the chemical composition of the limestone. Every stone was different. Then there was the grit you applied with a levigator. You applied three different grits, 80, 180, and 240. You had to do it for the right amount of time. Then you poured an bath of glacial acidic acid diluted to 5% onto the stone and let it set for 2 minutes. You brush the stone back and forth with a sponge to circulate the acid and allow for the reactive acid on the top to replace the stabilized acid nearest to the stone. At this point the stone is ready to accept your drawing. There are hundreds of different materials you can apply to limestone- Touche, Litho crayon, spraypaint, anything that has grease content. Once your drawing is complete you cover the drawing with talc and rosin powder before you apply the gum arabic. You have to put just the right amount of the powder in even distribution or the the gum arabic will not etch evenly. Then you apply the gum arabic. You have to know your grease. If you have a lot of grease, you add 7-14 drops of nitric acid to your gum arabic. This will make it etch "hotter." Too cold of an etch will make the image not appear. Too hot an etch will make everything turn black. After your etch is dry, you pull out the litho ink and add varnish. It has to be at the right tact, or consistency. You take turns loading a roller with the ink and then rolling the ink onto the stone. An aid assists you in keeping the stone wet. The stone must remain wet in order for the clean parts of the stone to repel ink and for the greasy parts to accept it. You run a proof. You have to run it a the right pressure. You have a pressure bar that you have to keep lubricated. If you do all of this perfectly you get a good image.

Headache yet? Here is my favorite piece: I started etching at 9pm and did not finish it until 11 am the next morning:

Now why did I go into all this?  Two reasons. One I wanted to illustrate that I understand what it takes to get something right. I don't cut corners. I work until it is right. The second reason is that I have learned some age-old techniques that I see being very applicable to stencil sandblasting on granite.

One of these techniques is intaglio engraving. Intaglio goes way back to the 15th century. Dutch artist and anatomist Bernhard Siegfried Albinus was one of these artists. Check out one of his engravings. Be sure to click on it and look at it up close!

Albinus used contour lines to create the illusion of depth. It is incredible craftsmanship. I want to apply the same technique to granite engraving. The girl at the top of this post is how far I have come on research. If the lines are done right, the will allow for great detail and value, all the while keeping drawings simple and line widths greater than 1/16".

I have been doing line tests and other research. I believe contour imaging will work. Next week I go to engrave the creation of adam with the same technique:

I have worked hard and watched closely to keep line widths over 1/16th of an inch. This is incredible detail for granite. Of course there are limitations. But IF you know those limitations, you will be able to take them to the limit. For this reason I am going to be producing a second, more arduous line test so that you can know exactly what your equipment can and can't do. I will continue to make standard two-tone graphics, and quality ones at that, but this is what I am really passionate about. Stay posted!