At the core of many monoprinting processes is a freedom of discovery that comes from simply pushing inks or paints around on a glass plate and pulling prints from that surface by laying clean paper into the still wet ink and applying pressure to the back of the paper, so that the ink on the glass is transferred to it. This is monoprinting at its most basic, but it is at this very basic level that invention can be at its highest because you are not weighed down by having to think about technique. Try this introductory method. Clean off a sheet of glass, apply some inks or oil paints and simply play in the inks with turps, rags and old brushes until you see something you like, then take a print off using some thin smooth paper. It can be really surprising what you come up with.
Alexander Cozens long ago realised the potential of a surface of marks to generate ideas for imagery. The potential for flowing ink to be seen as recognisable shapes is harnessed by his work, we are in his case asked to look for landscapes in these amorphous surfaces, but the same technique could be used to develop ideas for faces, bodies or animals. All we need is a focus for our looking and we will be able to find things.
This finding of imagery in a field of chaos is not that dissimilar to the process of perception itself. The world is a chaotic mass of moving stuff and we tend to pick bits out of it that make sense to us in order to find our way through it. Because of this I have always enjoyed forms of image making that allow for a vision to be discovered through the process of engaging with the flow of materials and for results that look as if they are just moments of fixed stages in a process that continues and will continue for as long as it has to.
I have pointed to Degas' mono prints before as being well worth looking at, but in this context they are fascinating, because they epitomise that shift between matter and energy that stands at the centre of perception and the way the world itself is constructed. At first sight this appears to be a very solid figure of a woman, the light dark contrast (chiaroscuro) appears to show us the carefully modelled torso of a woman turning away from us. But as you look closer you realise that this is simply a surface of marks, some of which are additive and others subtractive. White scratches appear at certain points and these offer indications of both highlights and movement, moments of change, where the eyes begin to turn into the blackness of space that the figure pulls itself out of. Sometimes blobs of black appear and these seem to suggest the physicality of the mass that is becoming solidified out of the flat surface, but at the same time they are obviously simply blobs of paint or ink, simple reminders of the physical nature of the material of making; at one moment the stuff of metaphor and at the next simply stuff.
First year students are having introductions to printmaking at the moment and mono printing is usually one of the first techniques introduced. Perhaps because this is a technique associated with first year introductions very few students revisit this set of techniques as they move on through the course, even so I have always found them invigorating and as a process it has always ensured that I work both quickly and with sensitivity to the medium.
Jane Morris Pack has made a series of very beautiful prints in response to the Iliad and has also made a short video that describes the techniques used.
Monoprinting can be used to give gravitas to very basic ideas, for instance this series of mono prints below by David Parfitt bare comparison with the work of George Shaw, the technique itself giving an overall coherence and sensibility to a series of images that could easily be dismissed as too 'ordinary'.
Alexander Cozens long ago realised the potential of a surface of marks to generate ideas for imagery. The potential for flowing ink to be seen as recognisable shapes is harnessed by his work, we are in his case asked to look for landscapes in these amorphous surfaces, but the same technique could be used to develop ideas for faces, bodies or animals. All we need is a focus for our looking and we will be able to find things.
Alexander Cozens: A New Method of Assisting the Invention in Drawing Original Compositions of Landscape
This finding of imagery in a field of chaos is not that dissimilar to the process of perception itself. The world is a chaotic mass of moving stuff and we tend to pick bits out of it that make sense to us in order to find our way through it. Because of this I have always enjoyed forms of image making that allow for a vision to be discovered through the process of engaging with the flow of materials and for results that look as if they are just moments of fixed stages in a process that continues and will continue for as long as it has to.
Degas: Monoprint
I have pointed to Degas' mono prints before as being well worth looking at, but in this context they are fascinating, because they epitomise that shift between matter and energy that stands at the centre of perception and the way the world itself is constructed. At first sight this appears to be a very solid figure of a woman, the light dark contrast (chiaroscuro) appears to show us the carefully modelled torso of a woman turning away from us. But as you look closer you realise that this is simply a surface of marks, some of which are additive and others subtractive. White scratches appear at certain points and these offer indications of both highlights and movement, moments of change, where the eyes begin to turn into the blackness of space that the figure pulls itself out of. Sometimes blobs of black appear and these seem to suggest the physicality of the mass that is becoming solidified out of the flat surface, but at the same time they are obviously simply blobs of paint or ink, simple reminders of the physical nature of the material of making; at one moment the stuff of metaphor and at the next simply stuff.
First year students are having introductions to printmaking at the moment and mono printing is usually one of the first techniques introduced. Perhaps because this is a technique associated with first year introductions very few students revisit this set of techniques as they move on through the course, even so I have always found them invigorating and as a process it has always ensured that I work both quickly and with sensitivity to the medium.
Jane Morris Pack has made a series of very beautiful prints in response to the Iliad and has also made a short video that describes the techniques used.
Jane Morris Pack: Prints from the Iliad series
Monoprinting can be used to give gravitas to very basic ideas, for instance this series of mono prints below by David Parfitt bare comparison with the work of George Shaw, the technique itself giving an overall coherence and sensibility to a series of images that could easily be dismissed as too 'ordinary'.
David Parfitt: Monoprints from an old quarry
Of course once you begin using printmaking processes you might want to move on to produce much more ambitious images and to try out other processes such as woodcut. I have suggested that if you are interested in scale and ambition Emma Stibbon's large woodcut prints are very interesting, and have found a video of Agnès Dubart at work that demonstrates how these very large woodcuts are made.
Emma Stibbon: woodcut from two large sheets of plywood
Agnès Dubart: Woodcut
Superb creativity...
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