My studio is in a small town in the exurbs of a NH city. My studio is not at all difficult to find but it’s a minimum of a half-hour drive from anywhere! So one of the positives outcomes of our current crisis know as Covid-19 is a way to bypass geography. That means I can spend some art-time with new friends from all over the country!
The first workshop offered from my studio for August will be on the Zoom platform and I hope you will join me for an afternoon of fun and exploration.
We’ll make monotypes. That is a type of printmaking without a reproducible element. I know that sounds a bit wacky since isn’t printmaking all about multiples! Monoprints are that, plates that have some element, such as an etching, or shaped plate, that will appear in every print, while a monotype will only produce one image, and perhaps a second “ghost” of that image.
You can use a variety of materials as a printing plate, since we are not using a press. A sheet of glass, a piece of plexiglas, a gelatin plate, or even your tabletop itself can function as a printing plate for monotypes without a press. For this class we’ll be using gelatin plates. You can use either a commercial brand like Gelli or GelPress, or a homemade version like mine which is made from gelatin and glycerin.
We’ll make our monotypes without a press, and we’ll make them with oilpaint and blending medium. The oils are R&F pigment sticks, or oil paint (I’ll be using Williamsburg Handmade Paint), and R&F Blending Medium.
We’ll print onto calligraphy practice paper (“rice” paper) or any of the thin Asian printmaking papers. If I were creating prints that I wanted to present matted and framed, I’d choose a beautiful paper like Kitakata or Stonehenge. I generally use my monotypes as raw materials for collage constructions on cradled panels with encaustic medium, over which I use mark-making tools and oil paint, ArtGraf carbon disks, or PanPastel. I’ll post more news about building images with collage soon.
This class is scheduled for August 7, 2020, from 1 to 4 pm. I’m going to limit it to 10 students so that I can give everyone proper personal time and attention.
You can see what materials you will need to gather and you can sign up at this LINK