A Couple Birds

     These are a couple more prints I did in college.  I recently photographed some school art that I didn't have digital copies for and these are among my favorites.  They are both monotypes, or monoprints.  The first, Dancing Crow, was made with black ink and the gray is simply black ink thinned out by mixing with a transparent base (basically a clear gel/paste).  The white is no ink, or ink wiped away from the plexiglass plate.
     The second image, Andre the Giant, is probably my favorite monotype from school.  It's multiple colors, and the process is much more difficult that this print might convey.  I started out with 4 plexiglass plates.  On the first I drew the image with black ink.  The other three plates were designated for red, yellow, and blue.  The idea is that all 4 plates will be sandwiched together and the ink can mix together.  It's' sort of similar to the halftone screenprinting process.  For instance, the green was a result of yellow on one plate and blue in that same area on a second plate.  Also keep in mind that I had one shot with this and I had to line up all the plates so the image could come together.  It was time consuming yet a labor of love.  I suppose that is why I like the print so much.  Thank you for reading!

The monotype

These are some monotypes I created in college. The monotype, or monoprint, is a printmaking process where only one print can result (hence the name) in contrast to an edition which is possible with other printmaking mediums. The reason for this is that you are essentially creating a painting on a surface (with ink, or watercolor) that will be trasferred to a piece of paper. Once the image has been printed, a "ghost" image is left behind on the surface the artist painted on. This is a faint impression of the original image. The artist can then print the ghost image, alter it by adding or subtracting to the image, or simply paint the image again using the ghost image as a guide. No matter what, the image will almost never be the same twice (I say almost because anything's possible). It's also fun to combine printmaking techniques, like in "Knife Stab" where I used chine colle (a printmaking process where the artist glues paper to paper. not as easy as it sounds) in addition to monotype.