Monday, December 17, 2012

Demystifying printmaking - the monotype.

Many people have asked me what a print is and how it is made.  I took some pictures of a demonstration to help demystify the printmaking process.

In these photos I am creating a monotype. The resulting print will be one of a kind (labeled 1/1) and is called a monotype because there are no permanent marks (matrix) on the plate.


1. Mixing the inks, some are thinned with transparent base, others are straight color.









2. Rolling on a thin base layer on the reverse side of the drawn image. The drawn image is there as a guideline for subsequent layers of markmaking. It does not transfer to the paper.













3. Placing the plate ink side up on the press bed in the center of a registration mark. The registration mark guides the plate into the same position on the paper with each pass through the press.






 4. Trapping the paper under the roller so that it stays in place through subsequent printings and then lowering it down on top of the plate. The blankets are then lowered down on the paper.








5. Rolling the paper and the inked plate through the press with blankets and pressure to transfer the ink into the paper.












6. The ink is transferred from plate into the paper for the base color layer. The plate is then removed to apply more layers.













7. Ink rolled on again and areas subtracted with absorbent materials - here I used a qtip.
















8. Layer two; the subtracted areas show base color, the other areas show the combined colors of the two layers of ink









9. The next layer of ink is additive, using a brush with thinned ink or the edge of a roller.


















10 The ink is transferred and the process continues until the right layering, line, color, shape and form is achieved. The light from the earlier layers comes through and depth is added a layer at a time.










Sunday, December 16, 2012