Monotype
Carol Nunan of Carol’s Original Prints has requested that printmakers post a “how to” on their blog about monotypes.
A monotype is a kind of one-off print, I think of it as a drawing with printing ink. I can get bogged down in the technical aspects of printmaking – of perfecting the ‘process’, and this is a way of freeing up ideas and mark-making. Drawing, but you get all the lovely qualities of a print through the transfer of ink to paper.
My printmaking table is a heavy piece of tempered glass on trestles, (bought from Ikea).
To create a monotype I tape a sketch on the underside of the glass so it shows through and then roll out oil based printing ink on the upper surface of the table. I use oil based ink because it stays wet for so long and I have a lot of time to work on the image.
Using various scrapers, one of those silicon tipped ‘colour shapers’, bits of plastic and metal, rags and cotton buds, I remove the ink, or push it about. Sometimes flinging white spirit around or flicking it on with a toothbrush. I also add ink with a brush, toothbrush or sometimes a bit of cut down cork.
Putting paper down over the image and pressing with a baren, or my second favourite tool, the back of a smooth plastic salad spoon, I transfer the ink to the paper.
I am currently favouring a thinnish ‘ho-sho’ paper, which picks up the ink really well but am also messing about with working on a card with a very smooth almost shiney surface which because it is so robust, allows me to then work back into the image directly onto the paper.
