Mary Laur

Mary Laur began painting alongside her father as a youngster in Vienna, Austria. Born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1959, much that has influenced her work originated from her childhood years spent overseas.  Her decision to study academically and pursue art as a way of life finally came in 1994.  She continues to study fine art at Montgomery College, lives just outside of Washington, DC and does most of her work at home in her studio.

As a child Mary spent long hours drawing the family pets, of which there were many, and mimicking the popular cartoonists and illustrators of the time.  She spent much of her life growing up in an agricultural area that slowly became urbanized. She misses the open spaces, farms, and animals, and often uses images of domesticated animals in her artwork.

Since turning her focus away from a fifteen-year office career, her creative work has found its way into many diverse arenas.  Enjoyed by private collectors, her work has also been juried into national and international shows, has been used as cover art for a regional publication, and has illustrated quality print advertising and web content.  Her work can also be seen on the cover and within the pages of Carl Taylor's book Paddles on the Yukon.

Formal gallery presentations have included such venues as The National Institutes of Health, the Audubon Naturalist Society Woodend Headquarters, the Johns Hopkins Space Telescope Science Institute Gallery, Towson State University, the Howard County Center for the Arts, the Rockville Arts Place, and the World Print Festival in Slovenia. 

Mary's appreciation of fine art prints and the wealth of techniques used in their production has drawn her creative energy towards printmaking.  Though she works primarily with lithography, the variety of effects seen in the many different methods of printmaking is a constant inspirational source.  To stay close to that inspiration Mary belongs to the Maryland Printmakers association and is currently steward of the group's dynamic web site (www.marylandprintmakers.org). 

Other creative outlets include drawing and painting in both watercolor and oil, and making jewelry.  Her lithographs and etchings can be found at Alleghany Arts and Crafts Center in Clifton Forge, Virginia.  To contact Mary Laur directly please use the contact form.

About Printmaking
Today's printmaking techniques are rooted in a rich history.  Dating back to ancient China, woodcut printing and even an early form of movable type printing developed as a means of reproducing images and text.  During printmaking's growth from a modest means of reproducing information to today's mass print media, each technique has also evolved to a fine art.

About Lithography
Of the many forms of printmaking, lithography (taken from the Greek "litho" for stone and "graph" for writing) was invented only 200 years ago in Germany by Alloys Senefelder.  The classic process involves printing from slabs of limestone.  The artist draws the image directly onto the stone with a specialized greasy drawing material, and then chemically treats the surface.  That treatment (or etching) both releases the fatty acids from the drawing material into the stone surface creating an ink attracting area, and also protects the non-drawn area (by making it more water retentive) so that it will repel ink during the printing process. Actual printing involves dampening the stone and relying on the natural repellent characteristic of water and oil as the greasy ink is rolled over the surface. A fine art lithograph is very different from a commercial offset lithograph in that it is a product of the artist's hand rather than a photomechanical industrial reproduction of some other image. No matter how high quality a commercial reproduction of a painting or other artwork may be (from inexpensive posters to pricey computer-generated inkjet prints like Gicleé), Original prints, then, are not reproductions of paintings or other works as seen in commercial offset printing that are often available as posters, but are images made specifically for hand printing with the printmaking technique as the medium.

Unlike etchings, where the image is bitten into the surface of a metal plate with acid, lithographic images become receptive to the ink used during printing, and reside on the surface of the limestone (or ball-grained aluminum plate); this specific quality is known as a planographic printing technique.