Monoprint Workshop

I run a monoprint printing session at Josephine Press, and last weekend I had a  couple of new people, so I got to do some mini demos of the basic techniques.  To the left, the first image is demonstration reductive inking for the figure, additive inking for the blue background, and stencils for the halo.  Next to it is the ghost print.  A ghost print is a print when only the residue left on the plate is printed. It always takes artists used to working painting on canvas and panel awhile to get accustomed to painting on plexiglass for monoprint, but at this point in my career, I'm far more adept at using the plexiglass.

I'm trying to get people to work more with multiple plate printing, so the second print I demonstrated I made sure to use two plate.  The green background and the figures body were printed first, followed by the hands and face for the second print.

Last picture are the stencils I cut. 

"The Crowd I" Monotype

This is a monotype from my last solo show, The Disagreement. Like the last one, it's on 29" by 41" Arches paper and made with rubber based black ink, cut with varying degrees of flash oil.  For such a simple image, it took me ages to draw.  Keeping edges and the plate clean is a struggle with monotype, so I always had a bottle of isopropyl alcohol on hand to help tidy up fingerprints and to dip a Q-tip into to sharpen up the edges.

In printmaking, a print designates that something is reproducible in some way.  A monoprint is a print that is one of a kind, but incorporates something reproducible, like if I had used a woodcut or stencil in conjunction.  But, since this is entirely hand painted before printing, it is a monotype. My friend Tim Musso and I just started having a monthly crit group. We met for the first time last night, and discussed each other's recent work and then set goals or homework for ourselves to fulfill by the time we meet next month. I showed him this and two other monotypes. One of my issues is the need to have small sellable work that can compliment my sculpture without distracting from it or being too illustrative. I don't know yet if these fulfill those requirements for me.

Black Lipstick

Skin turns to parchment in the heat. Curling up in papery layers, pulling back from the flesh, and exposing it in warm pink stripes.



A friend, to explain a complaint, told me that poverty is not typified so much by a lack of money but by the attitude that everything is irreplaceable, and so the poor amass yogurt containers, mop handles with decaying sponge heads, dishes in boxes unused and ugly. His complaint was towards my own habit of hoarding, assigning more importance to the funds which might be spent replacing the ephemera in the future should I find a use for it once its gone than to the money spent on storing the ephemera in waiting for this phantom purpose. Still I can't shake the desire to hold onto anything which passes through my possession, and go out of my way to amass the detritus of other people as well. Yet I get a luxurious pleasure when I assign the shoe rack, which I know I could make into something else, to the Goodwill pile. It feels rich to value space.