L’atelier Les Mains Libres
Fine-art printmaking studio, lithography and screen printing
Carcès, Provence
In Carcès, in the heart of green Provence, the Les Mains Libres studio hand-prints lithographs and screen prints on an 1850 hand press.
Artists, illustrators, publishers, or simply the curious: the studio supports every project, from drawing on the stone to the numbered print.
Lithography in four steps
Discover lithographyFrom the Greek Lithos, stone. Graphein, to write. 1796, Munich. Alois Senefelder discovers that a greasy drawing made on limestone can be printed over and over again.
- Drawing on the stone. The artist draws directly on a limestone block, with a lithographic crayon or greasy ink.
- Water and grease repel. The stone is dampened: water settles everywhere except on the greasy drawing. Nothing is carved, it is all chemistry.
- Ink, then press. The roller lays ink on the drawing alone. The sheet then goes through the studio’s 1850 hand press.
- An original print. Each sheet is pulled by hand in a limited edition, numbered and signed by the artist. It is not a reproduction.
Fresh off the press
All lithographs
Stone, water, and ink
Lithography is based on a simple principle: water and grease repel each other. What the artist draws on the stone retains the ink, while the rest repels it. More than two centuries after its invention, the technique has lost none of its finesse.
Discover lithography