Printmaking

The  Emmaus Art Group want to look at prints this week.I love running the Art group because all the preparation that I do for the group often informs my own work. That is apart from the poured figures last week that I had an aversion to.

This week it's printmaking of some form.

Printmaking for my own work isn't really much that I think about. I do a lot of tonking ( just taking the excess paint of my work ) but that's it really. With printmaking you end up with soo many images - well I already have loads and loads of paintings, so that's where I am coming from.

MONOTYPE PRINTS
Make an image with printing inks/ acrylics/ oils on plexiglass, glass or acetate. A non pourus surface. Make your image  adding and subtracting ( wiping off with a cloth etc ) putting in texture with combs or other implements. Put a piece of clean paper over it, and then a thicker board and using a roller or a rolling pin , print off.

You can use dry or wet paper and can often obtain a second print , a GHOST IMAGE.

These prints are unique, one offs .

MONO PRINTS
These are where you make a MATRIX on wood, mountcard using INTAGLIO methods of cutting into the card, or COLLAGRAPH methods of building up the print bed.When you ink it up and print off it, you still have the matrix to make some more monoprints , perhaps using different colours.


I made a simple one on mountcard, cutting out the tree shape and the hill shape with a Stanley knife.I
Then put two layers of PVA down to seal it , and let it dry overnight. I inked it up with a combination of water based printing inks and acrylic paint.

I inked a strip of brown and black paint in the area where the tree was.

The print below was the first finished one she says. The black for the tree has come through too much but I couldn't wait until it was dry !

This one was where I wet the paper..... But I rolled straight onto the card on the back without putting a thicker piece of card on , so you can see the roller marks. Ughhhh ! But it does slightly resemble woods and trees.

This was the ghost image, the second print that does have some qualities.

 This was the actual matrix or print bed. When l put the paint and ink down , I liked the image so
didn't want to print off it. He ho. When it was dry though, the colours and tones became flatter, if you like.

Try again.. . . . . . . 

This is a MONOTYPE  print. I used rollers and printing inks and acrylics to put down a basic ( very basic ) landscape. 

Above was the printing plate worked on acetate. Below was the print. I preferred the print upside down . I had wet the cartridge paper.

Ughhhhhh !

Try again ........ Well maybe. The best thing for me out of this lot was that l liked painting on the mountcard with two coats of pva on. But really, it's much more expensive than cartridge or hardboard. Try hardboard with acrylic gesso, then varnish or Pva , that would be cheaper. Try a figure..........

Right, so I drew a figure from a life drawing on mountcard, cut it out and coated both sides with pva ( two coats.) I used brushes to paint the figure , I liked the brush marks in the printed images. I wet the paper for the first one and printed a second, 'ghost image,' I liked the idea of the cut out figure placed alongside the printed image. Definitely has potential .........

See what the Art group do on Wednesday .............