Welcome to Janet Wissmann's STONE LITHOGRAPHS sales page! Here you can buy a print and read a little bit about how my original stone lithographic prints were made --and hopefully gain an appreciation for the hard work that goes into making one.
Be sure to click on various pictures to enlarge them and see the marvelous detail.  
All my original stone lithograph prints on this page are for sale. Please phone me if you would like to make a purchase; I'll arrange to send you a PayPal bill so you can pay with credit card, or you can mail a check.   To see more of my artwork and paintings, GO HERE to MY HOME PAGE   >>   >>   >>   >> 

Great Horned Owl
Hand-pulled original stone lithographic print by Janet L. Wissmann.

print $110 ppd.
matted print $145 ppd.

This one is a real knockout! The print is rich and velvety, beautifully framed by the mats and the white edge of the mat bevels. Includes double rag matting of dark olive over black. Mounted with hinges on acid-free backing. Edition size: 12 s/n prints on Rives BFK gray rag. Finished matted size 16x16". This is a spectacular piece, especially when framed in a simple thin black frame (not included). You won't be disappointed! If you have any questions about this print, if you would like to see more photos please feel free to contact me.  Matting materials are all conservation materials, front and back. Matted and mounted print, ready for your frame $145.  Print alone $110.   Shipping is included with this print!  Click the bottom right picture to enlarge.  

To purchase this stone lithograph:  phone me first and then I'll email you an invoice which you can pay by mailing a check OR using your credit card.  Phone Janet Wissmann 608-624-5511   9am to 9pm Central Time  7 days a week.

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Original Hand-pulled Stone Lithograph
Three Red-tailed Hawks

Three Red-tailed Hawks -Original hand-pulled stone lithograph by Janet L. Wissmann -- $200.
Edition size only 20 s/n prints were ever made; the stone used to print these images has been destroyed.
These three poses are of the same Red-tailed Hawk which was a wildlife rescue animal. The bird's wing had been injured so badly by a collision with a car that he could not be released back into the wild. He became a bird that the wildlife rehabilitator used for educational outreach programs at nature centers and forest preserves in Central Illinois. This bird is the same species as New York City's famous Red-Tail, "Pale Male", who nests on a building across from Central Park. The print actually has more margin than the picture above shows; image size is ~9.5 x 11.5 inches; paper size is 14 x 18. Paper is 100% cotton rag (d'Arches). Shipping is additional.

 To purchase this stone lithograph:  phone me first and then I'll email you an invoice which you can pay by mailing a check OR using your credit card.  Phone Janet Wissmann 608-624-5511   9am to 9pm Central Time  7 days a week.

 

Picture above is actually larger than life size.






Sepia Red-Tailed Hawk - Original Stone Lithograph

Sepia Red-Tailed Hawk
Original hand-pulled stone lithograph.
This print has a smaller outer dimension than the three-hawk print shown above, but the head study is the same size; it's printed from the same drawing on the stone that was used for the 3-head prints. I managed to do this by printing the 3-head prints first, then removing the images of the other two heads by scraping and grinding the images off the stone while leaving this one on the stone. The image is approx. 4x6" ; paper size is 10x11". Click on picture to enlarge. This original stone lithographic print was printed with sepia-colored ink on cream d'Arches rag paper. Looks really good under an oval mat! Edition: 9 s/n. Only one print remains. $155 plus shipping.
 

To purchase this stone lithograph:  phone me first and then I'll email you an invoice which you can pay by mailing a check OR using your credit card.  Phone Janet Wissmann 608-624-5511   9am to 9pm Central Time  7 days a week.

 
Red Tailed Hawk original stone lithograph

Original Hand-Pulled Stone Lithographic Print
Phoenix - Maine Coon Cat

Phoenix -Original Stone Lithograph by Janet L. Wissmann -- $175.
Look at that detail! Janet drew this Maine Coon Cat with a lithographic pencil onto the finely-ground Bavarian limestone slab, and the prints turned out so well that the college instructor purchased two for his family! Edition: 40 s/n prints on d'Arches rag. Paper size 10x14"
Matted: $250 includes double-mat of creamy white archival rag mat (16x20 inches). Click images to enlarge for detail.

 To purchase this stone lithograph:  phone me first and then I'll email you an invoice which you can pay by mailing a check OR using your credit card.  Phone Janet Wissmann 608-624-5511   9am to 9pm Central Time  7 days a week.

 
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As an extra-special personalized touch, for no extra charge the artist will hand-color the eyes in your choice of blue, green, or amber! Click on the green eyes picture at left to enlarge.

To purchase this stone lithograph:  phone me first and then I'll email you an invoice which you can pay by mailing a check OR using your credit card.  Phone Janet Wissmann 608-624-5511   9am to 9pm Central Time  7 days a week.

MAINE COONS - By the way, if you like Maine Coon Cats then you may be interested in the original Maine Coon Cat watercolor painting on this page »

Maine Coon cat art, Maine Coon Cat print, Maine Coon Cat drawing, Maine Coon Cat stone lithograph, Cat stone lithographic print for sale

BRIGHT EYES PRINTS Set of 8 prints $60.00. Single prints $24 each.
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OH, THEY ARE SO LOVELY!

To purchase :  phone me first and then I'll email you an invoice which you can pay by mailing a check OR using your credit card.  Phone Janet Wissmann 608-624-5511   9am to 9pm Central Time  7 days a week.

 

Bright Eyes set of 8 Limited-edition prints by Watercolorist Janet L. Wissmann

Rockome -Original Stone Lithograph

Rockome -Original hand-pulled stone lithographic print by Janet L.Wissmann
Image 6.5 x 4.5 inches Paper size 10.5 x 8.5 inches
Edition is limited to 6 signed & numbered original prints plus one Artist's Proof. Printed on d'Arches rag paper. $100. Feel free to contact me if you have questions or would like more photos of this piece.

 To purchase this stone lithograph:  phone me first and then I'll email you an invoice which you can pay by mailing a check OR using your credit card.  Phone Janet Wissmann 608-624-5511   9am to 9pm Central Time  7 days a week.

 

More about the Lithograph Rockome
Click on images to see the beautiful details of this little print.
In central Illinois, three hours south of Chicago, there is a low-tech amusement park in Amish country called Rockome Gardens. This slow-paced park hosts an annual autumn event called Horse Farming Days. During this event visitors can learn how steam threshers work, make a sisal rope by hand, or attempt to plow with a team of draft horses. Janet Wissmann's stone lithographic print, Rockome, depicts part of the bridle of a draft horse at Rockome Gardens. I drew this image in reverse directly onto the surface of the lithographic limestone slab, using special grease pencils similar to china markers. After treatment with several chemicals, a sheet of paper was placed over the inked image and the stone was run through a press. Prints made in this manner are called hand-pulled prints. Read more about stone lithography at the bottom of this page, and come back up here to view Rockome with a new appreciation. This gentle and quiet little work of art is a nice study in texture, shades of gray, and abstract form. Click on the detail photos above to view the fine details of this artwork.
Rockome -Original hand-pulled stone lithographic print by Janet L.Wissmann

To purchase this stone lithograph:  phone me first and then I'll email you an invoice which you can pay by mailing a check OR using your credit card.  Phone Janet Wissmann 608-624-5511   9am to 9pm Central Time  7 days a week.

FOR SALE
Grizzly Bears -Original Hand-pulled Stone Lithograph 

$145 print alone    or    $180 matted as shown

Grizzly Bears -Original Stone Lithograph by Janet L. Wissmann. Edition 8 s/n prints on d'Arches cotton. Image approximately 9.5 x 9.5 inches. -- $145 print; $180 matted print.

Matting is dark olive top mat, black inner mat; all materials are conservation/acid-free.

To purchase this stone lithograph:  phone me first and then I'll email you an invoice which you can pay by mailing a check OR using your credit card.  Phone Janet Wissmann 608-624-5511   9am to 9pm Central Time  7 days a week. 

More about the Lithograph Grizzly Bears
Click images to see the details.

Janet writes, "Here's something really interesting. Click on the right detail image above to see the beautiful watercolor-like effect where the rocks spill onto the bottom border of the print (near my signature). This was done with diluted liquid tusche and salt crystals. I love the manner in which the tusche-and-salt process creates a three-dimensional effect, with all the sharp edges and 'granulation' that watercolorists love."
We cut our own mats in the artist's studio, so matting colors can be somewhat flexible to suit your needs; in this case we've shown dark olive over black, but another suggestion is creamy white over creamy white.  To purchase this stone lithograph:  phone me first and then I'll email you an invoice which you can pay by mailing a check OR using your credit card.  Phone Janet Wissmann 608-624-5511   9am to 9pm Central Time  7 days a week.

FOR SALE
Puffins -Original Stone Lithograph  $100

Click picture to enlarge: 

Puffins -Original hand-pulled stone lithograph by Janet L. Wissmann. - $100.

Edition 6 signed & numbered prints, plus two Artist's Proofs, on d'Arches cotton rag paper. Image size 7.5 x 10.25 inches; paper size 8 x 11.25 inches.

To purchase this stone lithograph:  phone me first and then I'll email you an invoice which you can pay by mailing a check OR using your credit card.  Phone Janet Wissmann 608-624-5511   9am to 9pm Central Time  7 days a week. 

 
 

More about the Lithograph, Puffins
 

 

Regarding Puffins above, Janet writes, "I used a variety of media to indicate texture and darkness of the volcanic rock in this little stone lithograph showing three Atlantic Puffins perched on a rock ledge.
"First, I dribbled and spattered liquid mask onto the stone into places I wanted to keep white, including the cutouts of the three little puffins. A soft lithographic crayon dragged sideways across and down the paper lent the bold jagged strokes, and tusche (an india-ink like substance) was painted with a brush into the darkest blacks.
"Then I scratched and scraped the drawn stone surface with a razor blade to remove the threadlike areas around the ledge so that it would stand out a bit more from the deep black behind it. I washed away the mask that I had applied earlier. This mask prevented any of the media from touching the stone, so the result was spots that would hold no ink during the inking process later and thus would appear white in the final prints. Finally, I used a lithographic pencil and tusche to fill in the details in the tiny puffins. Be sure to click on the pictures to see them enlarged.

"My experience with watercolors helped me in creating this charming little print, as watercolor forces you to do some planning before you begin to work on a piece. Most of these prints even have a deckle edge or two, just like an original watercolor painting--a nice touch that shows the print is hand-pulled. "

To purchase this stone lithograph:  phone me first and then I'll email you an invoice which you can pay by mailing a check OR using your credit card.  Phone Janet Wissmann 608-624-5511   9am to 9pm Central Time  7 days a week. 

 

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Choose another Originals Gallery:

Dogs »



Cats »



Horses »



Wolves »



Birds »



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Janet L. Wissmann, Watercolorist - Soldiers Grove, Wisconsin
« home - www.janetwissmann.com
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About Stone Lithography

I've lifted the summary below from Wikipedia. After reading about stone lithography, I hope you will look again at my beautiful original lithographic prints with a new appreciation for the effort, the skill, the art, and the science that went into making them!

In lithography the entire print block comes in contact with the paper sheet, and a chemical process confines the ink to the desired image on the block. This contrasts with relief printing where the ink is carried on a raised image, and intaglio, where it lies in the grooves of an engraved image. Because the print block is flat rather than relief, lithography is described as a planographic print process.

Lithography works because of the repulsion of oil and water. The image is drawn on the surface of the print block with an oil-based medium. The range of oil-based mediums is endless but the dexterity of the image relies on the lipid content of the material being used--its ability to withstand water and acid. Following the placement of the image is the application of an acid emusified with gum arabic. The function of this emulsion is to create a salt layer directly around the image area. The salt layer seeps into the pores of the stone, completely enveloping the original image. This process is called etching. Using lithographic turpentine, the printer then removes the greasy drawing material, leaving only the salt layer; it is this salt layer which holds the skeleton of the image's original form. When printing, the stone or plate is kept wet with water. Naturally the water is attracted to the layer of salt created by the acid wash. Ink that bears a high lipid content is then rolled over the surface. The water repels the grease in the ink and the only place for it to go is the cavity left by the original drawing material. When the cavity is sufficiently full, the stone and paper are run through a press which applies even pressure over the surface, transferring the ink to the paper and off the stone.

Lithography was invented by Alois Senefelder in Bohemia in 1798, and it was the first new printing process since the invention of relief printing in the fifteenth century. In the early days of lithography, a smooth piece of limestone was used (hence the name "lithography"—"lithos" is the ancient Greek word for stone). After the oil-based image was put on the surface, acid burned the image onto the surface; gum arabic, a water soluble solution, was then applied, sticking only to the non-oily surface and sealing it. During printing, water adhered to the gum arabic surfaces and avoided the oily parts, while the oily ink used for printing did the opposite.

Within a few years of its invention, the lithographic process was used to create multi-color printed images, a process known by the middle of the 19th century as Chromolithography. A separate stone was used for each colour, and a print went through the press separately for each stone. The main challenge was of course to keep the images aligned (in register). This method lent itself to images consisting of large areas of flat colour, and led to the characteristic poster designs of this period. Many fine works of chromolithographic printing were produced in America and Europe.
A very detailed description of the stone lithographic preparation and printing process, with photos, can be found here.
More basics about stone lithography:
In Stone Lithography the artist draws the image directly onto a specially-prepared flat piece of smooth limestone from Bavaria. A limited number of lithographic prints are made from the drawing on the stone, and each print is individually signed by the artist. The stone is then resurfaced, destroying the drawing. As the stone is merely a tool, each lithographic print is considered to be an original. You can read more about the process near the bottom of this page. After reading a little about the art and science of stone lithography, you may have a new appreciation for the effort and skill that go into making stone lithographs of this quality.

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Please note that all images on this site are copyrighted by the artist and may not be reproduced in any manner without permission.