I taped down a brand new luscious sheet of Rives BFK. I put down a layer of a mixed not-quite-indigo, from burnt umber, ultramarine blue, Thalo blue, and ivory black.
I laid over this a sheet of thin unbranded Asian paper, drew my favorite leaves and plants, to lift a trace monotype. This left a vestige of carved lighter lines in the indigo layer. I added a layer of white cold wax paint. I repeated the process of lifting another impression from this surface, as a second layer on the first monotype.
The now infamous favorite tool of artists painting with cold wax medium, the Messermeister Silicone Bowl Scraper, was useful, here, to smooth over the white layer. Then I drew another version of the Blue Star Fern and the Staghorn Fern into the paint as an almost intaglio, revealing the “almost-indigo” as line.
