Printmaking Possibilities

Meanwhile back at the monoprint.  

I took one printmaking class back in the 90's and spent the majority of the time flirting with the guy I had a crush on and trying to subtlety shock my printmaking instructor by putting my block prints on underwear and carving curse words into my etchings (nothing looks dorkier than the word "bitch" with one of the letters reversed). 

So it's been a bit of a revelation to get back into it at this stage in the game.  After taking Kevin Harris' monoprint/drypoint workshop at the Dayton Printmaker's Co-op - stencils! selective wiping! I was hooked.

After Kevin's workshop, artist Ryan McCullough generously offered to put together a little monoprint session, and taught me a very sensible method for doing multi-run monoprints.  It involves mat-board and masking tape and is so common sense that it hurts my head a little.  So today was the second time we got together, along with the lovely Janelle Young who was doing fancy printmaking with white ink on a dark ground and Shannon from the gallery at Stivers who was working on a magical multi-layered feather.  

The image above is of my favorite print of the afternoon. It's not a color balanced photo; it's actually on a light coolish gray ground and the pink is Barbie Dream House trim color.  It was of course the first one and took the least amount of time, but I really like the jaunty awkwardness of it.  Also, the sentiment is something I've been feeling a bit lately what with all the different irons and different fires.

Incising text into ink is such a different feeling from constructing it in a drawing or painting; cleaning something off instead of building something up.

Working in tandem with other artists is fun and freeing.  We're really on a roll! (printmaking also  opens up the pun possibilities).