Monoprint with Handmade Paper Collage

Hello Blogosphere!

I am writing tonight with an entry about a project I completed last fall. This is an edition of 3 monoprints with hand made paper collage elements!

A monoprint, which is related to a monotype, is a unique artwork that is made with printmaking processes. The difference between a monoprint and a monotype is that a monoprint is in an edition of works that contain at least one element that is uniform to all the prints in that edition. Generally monoprints are easily recognizable as the same body of work but are slightly different depending on the manner in which they are rendered. Monotypes are generally one piece of unique work made with printmaking processes that do not have a means by which to create another work in the exact same method.

These prints are all 22X30" on Rives BFK, and the process in which they are created is fairly straight forward. Monoprints can be created easily with a large piece of plexiglass where you make a basic drawing based on what you want your final image to look like. Ink is applied to the INK SIDE of plexiglass and you have the option to work reductive or additively to change the way the ink prints onto the paper.

For instance in this piece when I made the skyscapes, I applied thick blue ink to the area that I intended to be blue and then worked in a reductive fashion into the sky with paintbrushes, paper towels and cotton swabs to reduce the amount of blue ink and let some of the white of the paper show through to allow for the effect of clouds.

In terms of additive process, much of the grass and landscape are printed and re-printed several times to build up layers of ink. The beauty of monoprinting is that an artist can achieve effective and imaginative gestures when working in this painterly process.

The rhinoceros figure is actually a collage element that was printed on handmade black denim paper separately. It is secured to the page by an industrial advertising adhesive called Sur-Tack. The form of the rhino was drawn and made into a stencil and then created perfectly three times to print. Before they were printed on they basically looked like black paper rhino silhouettes but then they were MONOPRINTED on to give them their features! The ink was specifically blended to be printed on a black paper so lots of white was added to ensure that it shows up well.

This image was inspired by endangered species and at the time I made it in 2010 I had caught news of one of the last female white rhinos in the world was killed by poachers. I wanted my work to reflect the ephemeral beauty of life on earth. 

I hope you enjoyed and as always, many humble thank yous for reading. Til next time!

-Mike