Invented in 1796, the process of lithography was created by Alois Senefelder as a simple and inexpensive printing method . Experimenting with multicolor lithography in the 1800s let its inventor to believe it would eventually be used to reproduce famous paintings and other works of art. This actually came to be the case in 1837 when Godefroy Engelmann develop another type of lithography process by which multicolor transfers could be made. The early uses of lithography for text transfer can be traced to countries using Turkish and Arabic. Early lithographers used a smooth piece of limestone and oil based substance with a solution of gum arabic in water to produce lithographs. This process works exceptionally well when you consider the repulsion between oil and water. The lithography process works based on this mutual repulsion between the surface and the medium. The mediums may range from a wax crayon to printing inks which have dry oil bases. The surfaces can be made of aluminum, polyester, mylar, or something as simple as a sheet of paper.
