Lithography for Fruit Labels part 2

Grease will not mix with water or acid.....that's the magic of stone lithography which came about in 1798.  Printers discovered that even basic fruit designs became complicated when using lithography.  These craftsmen thrived on making more intricate designed labels, and a large selection of colors created from ground inks.

The engraving on a litho stone is so delicate that you can barely feel the design with your fingers.  The inks used were like thick creams, and when rolled across the litho stone, they only adhered to the stippled areas.

The craftsmen would draw a design on the litho stone with a greased pencil.  Then acid was used to etched the stone...a thin layer of stone was etched away...thus the design drawn with the greased pencil still remained. In the printing process the ink would only adhere to the image drawn with the greased pencil.  The stone was repeatedly washed with water, as the ink resisted the water absorbed into the etched area of the stone. The constant flushing of water on the stone kept up the resistance of the ink to the etched area.

Part three talks about how they made five-color labels.