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About seven minutes into this, Lynch appears to be coloring with some sort of inky material on what looks like a sheet of plastic. Does anyone know what exactly he’s doing? I’m guessing he’s going to make a print off it—it looks like some of his lithographs I’ve seen, although I always assumed lithography generally required a lot of specialized material (like you see in his film Idem Paris: limestone tablets, big machine presses, etc.). What Lynch is doing seems much more casual—the kind of thing you can do with stuff from a local art store... As an amateur artist who knows very little about this type of stuff, I’d love to try and emulate it if possible.

I actually did show some clips of the film to employees at a local art store. They were very patient with me (God love them) but weren’t entirely sure themselves. Any help in the right direction (purpose, technique, materials, etc.) would be much appreciated!

It looks like he's drawing on acetate. It would have the benefit when working with soft/water based materials that he could smudge/shade/build texture AND erase as he goes - where if he was working directly on paper it would mark and he wouldn't have the same freedom to shape it.

Ah, thanks a bunch! That gave my detective work some direction, and I found some examples of how these drawings on acetate could be turned into prints. You mentioned

R0lf wrote:soft/water based materials...

Do you have any idea what specific materials Lynch is using in that scene? (Alas, if only I could just phone him up and ask...)