"I love color: subtle shadings, bold contrasts,
intriguing combinations.
I'm excited to have found a new way to
capture the complex textures and intricate patterns of nature
in an art form which allows me to explore that love of color!"

 Deda Garlitz earned her BA in ART with a heavy emphasis on printmaking and drawing.   As a commercial artist, she discovered the wonderful versatility of the air-brush.  She developed her own Aerographic Monoprint technique which makes use of air-brushing, embossing, and drawing. 

"What you are seeing is the direct colored impression of the carefully designed arrangement of real leaves onto 100% rag paper. The one-of-a-kind image is painstakingly enhanced with drawing, spraying, and my own unique matting treatment."

A native El Pasoan, she now enjoys a 'Texas Hill Country' hilltop home and studio with her family. She has won various awards in juried shows in Texas and New Mexico, including selection as 'Best in Graphics' at the 1995 and 1997 Texas State Arts & Crafts Fair in Kerrville. Her art was also chosen for the cover of the 1997 Fair brochure and for the 1997 Fall Pecan Street poster. Her monoprints are in many private collections and professional offices throughout Texas.  She recently showed her art process on Texas Country Reporter.

An Aero-Graphic Monoprint is a self-developed printmaking process, which combines air-brushing, embossing, and drawing. I gather real leaves, carefully spray them with specially mixed lithography inks, and then painstakingly compose the arrangement of loose colored pieces on the metal bed of my etching press. Dampened printmaking paper is placed over the composition, then felt blankets for padding. The whole press bed then passes between the rollers of the press under such pressure that the paper takes all the color and details from the leaf arrangement onto itself. The smashed leaves of that composition are then discarded, as I start over on another print - hence, the term MONOPRINT- each print is unique and individual. I enhance the print with detailed Prismacolor drawing, more air-brushing, and watercolor - intensifying colors, casting shadows, causing the print to look even more three-dimensional. I enjoy designing the matting and framing to make a complete and finished presentation. Cutting the edges of the print to let the image escape the boundaries of the mat seems to give an 'unexpected' vitality to the piece.

My Cast Paper Assemblage  is an arranged composition of cotton cast paper ‘leaves’, which I have made from many individual molds  that I made from many real leaves.  Each mold maintains all the veins and rippling shape of the original, and imparts those details to the dried paper image.  I have the fun of working them into a pleasing and dynamic arrangement.  Once that composition is in place using the white leaf pieces, the magic begins as I very carefully start to add subtle layers of air-brushed color – slowly building up many color changes, lights and darks, spraying from many directions to enhance the textural effect.   I then affix all the pieces onto the pre-designed layered background of linen, torn papers, or other interesting textures.  Each finished framed assemblage is numbered “1 of 1”, as it reflects the originality of the piece.

Education: BA Art, University of Texas at El Paso -1969

12 hours graduate study in printmaking - UTEP

Art related work experience:

Commercial artist - illustration, print production, 1969-72.

Art teacher, Lubbock High School, Lubbock, TX, 1973-74.

Free-lance commercial artist, 1976-1981.

Full-time printmaker since 1979.

Art Fairs and Exhibits:
Kermezaar, El Paso, TX-1979-2001
Texas Arts & Crafts Fair, Kerrville, TX 1981-2009
Weems Artfest, Albuquerque, NM - 1988-1991
Cottonwood Artfest, Richardson, TX - 1994-1996
Old Pecan Street Art Fair, Austin, TX - 1996-2002
Laguna Gloria Art Fair, Austin, TX-1996
Hufflnes Trails Art Fair, Richardson, TX 1996-2004
Wildflower, Richardson, TX 1997-99, 2001
Ruidoso Art Festival, Ruidoso, NM - 1998 - 2000
Texas Best 100 Art Fair, Salado, TX - 2000
Salado Art Fair, Salado, TX -1998, 1999
Round Top Art Fair, Round Top, TX - 1998-2000
Midland Septemberfest, Midland, TX - 1999-2005, 2007
McKinney Art and Jazz, McKinney, TX - 2001, 2002
Bayou City Art Fair, Houston, TX- 2000, 2001
Kingwood Art on the Square, Kingwood, TX - 2001
Artist Harvest, Austin, TX - 2001 renamed FACET – 2004, 2005
Woodlands Artfest, The Woodlands, TX – 2002, 2003
Southlake Octoberfest, Southlake, TX – 2002 – 2008
Las Artistas, El Paso, TX – 1984-91, 2000 - 2008