Don Portelance creates contemporary original paintings in oils, acrylic and watercolors. However he took a year Post Graduate Studies in Lithography at the Vancouver School of Art, then worked for over a decade at Malaspina      Printmakers Society creating original stone lithographs.

Although in his original paintings he generally focuses on portraits and landscapes inspired by his frequent world         travels, the images in these fine art prints, however, are taken from around the area of Vancouver, British Columbia     where the artist lives.

Stone lithography is a traditional printing technique that is centuries old. It was the favorite printing media of          Toulouse Lautrec.

In stone lithography the artist creates and prints by hand a small edition (usually less than 60) which he then signs and numbers. On the other hand reproductions such as giclee prints can be printed by the thousands and run off without the artist even being present.

Lithography is a planographic form of print-making, utilizing a completely flat printing surface. The artist creates the image with a greasy material onto a block of limestone, then chemically treats it so that only the image accepts the printing ink. By using multiple drawings, colored inks can by printed one over the other to produce a colored print. Lithography is a complex process requiring years of study.