kitchen lithography attempt 1

finally today i decided to try kitchen lithography since i had cola and tin foil 

I don't have a lithography pen/pencil so i thought i'd try using oil pastel as that was suggested in a video i watched and also its oil based which is important for this process.. I also used oil paint instead of ink as the ink i have is water based and i didnt want to just but lithography ink if i could just try with oil paint first...

didnt have any acetate so just cut a square out of a roses lid

looked around me for inspiration as to what to draw and decided to draw a money plant.. wrote 'money by the win/dow' next to it too and added some lil swirls n stuff....

cola bathhhhhhh

swooosh

used a brush to put on the oil paint as my roller is a foam one and it tends to soak up a lot of paint and i didnt really want to use it with oil paint... the first print came out ok, but was lacking boldness..
I also found it best to dab it on with the brush as strokes was smearing it everywhere and also erasing some of the design id originally etched onto the foil... at times i found it weirdly easier if the foil was wetter but at other times it was better dryer.. couldnt really work out what was going on

tried the process 3 more times, but found the same problems so decided to start again and try tweaking some things...

had a little look on reddit and saw a biro pen worked best for them so decided to give that a go on the next round... 

liked drawing with the pen as could add detail and also feel like it etched the design onto the foil better.. i also decided to try leave it longer in the cola bath (about 5mins).

at first it worked, but as i tried to add more layers of ink and make sure it was all covered, it started wearing away and ink would no longer stick at all to the etched parts. I even tried using the roller which was kind of better at times.

didnt even bother trying to fix it and decided to do one last attempt with the oil pastels

this time i used pastel again and did a very quick wonky drawing of the mocka pot, but used a different colour to help see if the ink was building up.. I managed to get it on there, but again could only get so much ink onto it before it started being pulled away again.

The prints definitely look interesting, but i would like to get the process a bit more refined. I think ill try get some actual printing ink and lithography pen and a better roller/a rubber one.. can probably get a mini one thats not spongey...
since this is kitchen lithography, i think its expected to be a bit slap dash, but if i could get to a point where i could build the ink up more, i wouldnt mind if it looked messy as thats the kinda deal you get with printing i feel like.