Monoprinting experiments and mistakes

Summer is passing pretty quickly. 

Next Monday enrolment opens for year two which I've been anxiously waiting for - I can't send off my funding application until I am enrolled and confirmed.

I've been print making, trying out methods and materials. Having a blast even with the many failures! It is a learning process. I just have to keep practising to get the feel for how much paint/ink is needed and the timing on the techniques.

Gel printing is a load of fun. I am really enjoying playing with the method. It's hit and miss on whether what I try to do works out, but even the messy mistakes are useable.

YouTube is very useful. This is the first time I've ever actually used it as a learning resource to this extent. Of course, there are many contradictions from one artist to another - one says do this, another says do that and yet another says neither will work! Some are engaging instructors, others are, literally, as inspiring as watching paint dry.

One artist I am feeling very inspired by is Mark Yeates. His YouTube channel is Yeates Makes. He is a fine artist using gel plates and his demos and experiments are giving me lots of ideas. I've tried some of the materials he showed with a couple of "wow that's great" results, and others with a "wtf did I do wrong?"

A lot of the videos are geared to creating printed papers for backgrounds and collage, but I am starting to find more that are more art oriented, meaning the intent is to create a work that stands alone. It is, after all, monoprinting.

I've been drying flowers and other vegetation as I plan to do some mixed media collage using the prints, as well as using them in the actual printing process.

Here are the results of my first attempts.

This is the first 15 gel prints I pulled.

These are some of my favourites from that batch.

That first lot are all approximately 4x4". I enjoyed it so much I ordered a couple of larger gel plates and carried on.

Those were done on an 8x10" plate. I pulled 25 prints and these are the ones I consider either interesting or close to what I was trying for.

Next I experimented with techniques I'd seen in the videos. Using laser printed images, charcoal, chalk pastels, and oil pastels to transfer images to the gel plates. What I discovered is that I need to do it again... and again... to get it to work!

There is a really fine line between enough paint/too much paint, too wet/too dry, pressing too hard, leaving on too long, etc. 

My first two tries at using laser prints to transfer an image to the plate did not work - too much paint and left it on too long I think. The toner resists absorbing the paint, but only if you don't let it sit on the wet paint longer than necessary. The third attempt ALMOST worked - I got enough of the image on the pull to recognize it, and parts of it were very clear, which was encouraging. I know I am going in the right direction with that technique at least.

Using chalk pastels worked but the image I pulled, while it was completely there, was faint, and it left a shadow on the plate. With the chalk you press the drawn image directly onto the gel plate, then apply the wet paint to lift it off. It appears you could draw directly on the plate (so said a YouTuber...) but I don't want to risk damaging it.

The best result was with black charcoal. As with the chalk, you press the charcoal image directly on the gel plate, then lift with wet paint. The image was as intense as the original and left no shadow on the plate after the pull. As you can see... I was just testing this! LOL

Oil pastels worked as well, but again, fainter than I wanted. These are a resist (same as the laser prints - the toner resists ink) so you lay the image on top of a layer of paint on the plate - the oil resists picking up the ink. Then you let the paint dry before adding a layer of paint to pick-up the image. A very quick scribble to see how it would work.

I had company while doing the test prints. Red towel is to protect the rug from the paint/ink... first session I didn't. Oops! But it did wash out with a lot of effort.