Happy Spring!

I wanted to make some Easter cards for family, so I choose a crocus image as the theme, and carved 3 blocks out of the "soft-cut" plates. I usually do reduction prints with one block, but I wanted to be able to try different colors in the future, and reduction prints leave me without that option. Here are the plates and the original sketch.

Unfortunately I gave away the best ones, but here are some variations.

The one on the left is hand-colored, the center one is the key block, and the last one is printed from all 3 blocks.

I ordered a few new supplies from Blick last week, and was happy to find them on my doorstep yesterday. I ordered some OPEN Golden Acrylic paints (slow drying), printmaking cards and envelopes, Akua print plates, and some  matte stencil film. The acrylic set came with a 5 x 7 Gelli plate. I'm going to explore some monoprinting with my new stuff this week. I saw some cool demos at the NAEA Convention in Chicago two weeks ago, and I wanted to try the materials.

                                                   The Gelli plate demonstration

Stay tuned.

Monoprint line technique

My Drawing 3 and Portfolio Prep classes are creating monoprint images in class this week. They had been working on reduction monoprints first, which is a technique where ink is wiped off the plate to create areas of positive and negative values, and textures.

This week we will be trying Line Monoprints. I have made an example to demonstrate the process.

First, roll ink onto a plastic plate with a brayer. I used masking tape to first make a border, and then peeled it off for clear precise edges. I used black Akua intaglio ink for this print.

Next I laid a sheet of Rives Light paper over the inked area, and taped it into place. I used a ball point pen to draw a rather detailed drawing of a dragonfly, that I had photographed last summer, onto the paper. 

After completing the drawing, I gently peeled it back to reveal the image underneath. The quality of line and shading is similar to a charcoal drawing. There is also a negative image left onto the inked plate which can be printed using a printing press and damp paper. 

positive  and negative

When the prints are dry, one can add watercolor wash, colored pencil, pastel pencil, or other mediums.