Monomaking

I said yesterday that I'd talk about monoprinting a bit.  This is probably not the best example, but it's the one I've got, so... The reason it's not a good example, is that it is made using the last of the paint left over from earlier printing sessions, which had dried up a bit, and was therefore not printing as well as it might.  Usually, I would use fresh ink. 

The way we usually think of monoprinting is of a single print from a plate that has been carefully prepared for it.  But it can be done in a series of stages, as the print I'm going to show you has been done.  This one is a single print, which I took off in stages, allowing it to dry and then adding more ink.  Stage one looked like this.

It's basically brown, from the leftover paint, with hints of yellow I'd added later, and a red circle I'd added.  This is what the plate looked like before I printed again, with ink added in a specific pattern.

The previous layer does need to be dry before you do this; otherwise, you're likely to transfer ink back to the plate from the wet sections, and that usually isn't the plan.

A stage further on, and you can just pick up the red zig zag motif in the centre, though it has somehow printed more brown that red, probably because the brown on the plate is still wet.

And the final stage

I wanted to add something...a highlight colour...so I used the yellow.  It's interesting enough, but not overly so.  If I stitch into this, it will be by machine; there are now three layers of (admittedly fairly thin) ink on the cloth, and it would be unpleasant to stitch by hand.  I'm likely to add hand stitch round the edges, though, to add texture.

I'm really not sure why I'm bothering with this... perhaps I'm just lazy, and don't want to put in the work to improve my skills... perhaps I'm trying to hang on to this last vestige of painting, when really I should just let it go and concentrate on things that are not so tiring...  That said, I do think it could be a good way of adding colour and interest to the books.  The jury is definitely still out on that one.  And yes, I probably think too much.  I'm feeling my limitations today, and maybe that's all it is.