Week 2 June 1-5

For Week Two I attended a Monotype workshop at Mixit Studios with Catherine Kernan.

http://www.catherinekernan.com/

Throughout the workshop I learned about:

Akua Inks, how to use them in general and about manipulating viscosity to achieve effects.

An Adaptive Monotype practice: Leaving room for accidents, creating lots of beginings, and layering to pull out images.

Planning Monotype layers by taking cognates.

Unorthodox Woodcut printing techniques, transfering woodcut imagery to pet g plates or other woodblock plates and taking negatives.

The Basics of Chine Colle.

The materials used were:
Akua Soy Based inks.
Transparent Base
Blending Medium
Magnesium Carbonate
Release Agent
Pet-G Plastic Plates
Reves Printmaking paper
"Rice" Paper
Newsprint
A variety Mark Making tools.
A dremel for etching
3m568 Adhesive Film for Chine Colle-

Day One
Arrived at Mixit at 10 Am

Catherine demonstrated trace monotype and manipulating viscosity.

I practiced the techniques on small plates.

I've gone over the principles of trace monotype in previous posts.

I'll give a quick explanation of viscosity then use some examples to show how I gained an understanding of how to manipulate it.

Viscosity is a term referring to the consistency of the ink. By varying degrees of viscosity you can control how the inks stick to the plate and each other.

The controlling principle is:
Looser inks reject stiffer inks.

You can loosen inks by adding transparent base or blending medium.
You can thicken inks by adding magnesium carbonate.


Here are a few examples.

 

So after having done a couple trace monotypes I immediately wanted to combine trace monotype with viscosity. I tried to trace monotype and lift ink off the paper then roll over with a stiffer ink to fill in the gaps. That resulted in the fainter lines in the background. Trace monotype didnt really pick up enough of the ink to achieve the dersired effect. The clearer lines come from scraping away ink directly, not using a sheet of paper to lift it off. This is a thick ink rolled over a thin ink, notice it only filled in areas that were scraped.

 

These are examples of what you can get if you roll a looser ink over a stiffer ink. The loose ink will fill in areas which you have scraped away. But it also will stick to the areas which haven't been scraped away, effects vary depending on the relative viscosity of the layers.

Important Note: All the interactions of viscosity happen on the plate before it is printed. Anything already on the paper does not reject the ink on the plate. When layering on the paper viscosity is unimportant. Inks are transparent and value and color will affect how the print looks on paper more than viscosity.

 

These are examples of stiff over loose viscosity layering.

Relase agent can be used a buffer when layering ink on a plate. It is looser than any ink.

This is how I arrived at the bottom image.
-Printed the green.
-rolled plate with release agent.
-Fresh marks to lift off release agent
-rollover on plate with orange.
-rolled with release agent.
-fresh mark lift off release agent and unerlying ink.
-rollover with red.
print-

As you can see. You can use viscosity to layer ink on a plate before you even print.

Left Mixit at 6:15 pm.

Day Two
Arrived at Mixit 9:40 Am

Quickly jumped into doing larger scale work. Experimenting and playing with the inks.

Painted on the plate with different tools using loose inks. Left blank space and used a variety of tools to scrape away inks and recreate negative space. Then I rolled over it with a stiff blue and printed it.

Took the dirty plate and rolled it with release agent then scraped away areas and added inks. Then rolled it with a stiff red which filled negative spaces.

In the second print I achieve more dynamic spatial interaction. A quality missing from the first print. The light shines through the back. Ghost layers of the last print flow through and the motions of the lettering are more articulate.

I again used the dirty plate and added inks to it to print this faint layer. I wanted to replicate the light shining through effect I had in the last print.

I overlayed with a dark red layer, Quickly carving into the red overlayer.

The mark layering is interesting in this one. But the color scheme is very two sided. The whites don't shine through, they are cloudy. The red left side is overwhelming.

I coated the plate in release agent made some fresh marks and printed the ghost.

Just a new begining.
Left Mixit at 4:30Pm

Day Three.

Arrived at Mixit at 10 Am

Started by printing a new layer on my freshest ghost print. Trying to pull out botanical forms form the marks already present.

Then took the ghost of that plate, but not before adding some fresh marks to the release agent.

After this I changed my angle of approach. Built a collograph up with Mitacious Iron Oxide then taking the cognate.

Taking the cognate. I printed my collograph with a dark ink. Then Increased the pressure of the press and printed the fresh print onto a piece of newsprint. This gave me a print which lined up with the plate. Which I then placed under the plates for subsequent layers. Making it easy for me to line up the images.

The Cognate- in the foreground.

Then I wanted to print a plate I thought I had already prepared with release agent. I rolled it with a stiff red ink and ended up with a almost completely red plate. I had only put down a small amount of resist (blending medium and transparent base mixed to protect areas from an over roll)

I made a few marks and almost printed it that way, but Cathy stopped me and told me to reduce more, and not to get hung up on only having one way of marking the plate.
I was having trouble getting the stiff red off of the plate for I started using blending medium to loosen the areas I was trying to reduce. I spent a few hours on the plate, employing the reductionist approach reminiscent of woodblock prints. I was taking away the ink to leave blocks in the desired shapes; something I had never tried before.

I ended up with this plate.

I left Mixit at 5pm

Day Four

Arrived at Mixit at 10 am

I continued on the plate I left the overnight. I used resist to protect some areas of the plate then did a roll over of an olive brown color and wiped away some of the brown. I printed it on the pink and blue print.

 Then I inked my collorgraph with a warm dark purple and printed that on top.

 I decided this print was complete. Completing a print I had put so many layers on and spent so much time on brought on a feeling of exhaustion and relief. And I was stuck contemplating what direction to move in next.

Day Five

Arrived at Mixit at 

After sleeping on it, I decided to create new types of line on my collograph plate by etching onto the plate with a dremel. I experimented with this option drawing more flowery shapes onto the plate. Then because the etching marks are hard to see on the clear plastic, I inked the plate. I wanted to see how it looked printed and wanted a guide for further etching so I printed the cognate.
I wasn't particularly please with the print or the cognate. I felt tired with the flower imagery and debated starting fresh by painting a new plate. But Cathy talked to me out of it, by suggesting that I morph the image into something else, maybe by flipping the plate in a different direction. I became interested in the upside down version of the plate and began drawing on the print pulling out shapes and making figures.

I decided to try and replicate the drawing on my plate by using both mitacious iron oxide to add to the collograph and the dremel to etch finer detail into the dry iron oxide and the plate itself.

Here is what I had when I left the shop at 5pm. I look forward to continuing this project in my independent studio time.

I'd like to thank Catherine Kernan for being such a helpful teacher and guide throughout the workshop. I would have undoubtedly made much slower progress without her knowledge, advice and encouragement.

Key Points

Akua Inks- The only rule is to pay atention to the materials and what they are doing. Getting to know the materials is how you will be able to manipulate them. Using viscosity is easier when you are observant not when treating the inks formulaicly.

Adaptive Monotype practice: Give up some control, Leave room for accidents and temper expectations, creating lots of beginings, no print is ever finished until you want it to be, and layer to pull out images.
Morphing the existing plate into a new image is an exciting way to generate ideas.

Planning Monotype layers by taking cognates. Tape the cognate under the clear plastic plate. That Way you can build on the image without having to reverse it in your mind.

I will discuss these more once I get the chance to try them out in my own work:

Unorthodox Woodcut printing techniques, transferring woodcut imagery to pet g plates or other woodblock plates and taking negatives.

The Basics of Chine Colle.

They were demonstrated by Cathy but I have not used them yet.

I will also discuss traditional Japanese woodcut techniques which I learned about at the Hokusai show at the MFA this Sunday.