One Thing...

...inevitably leads to another...or in this case...six others.  It seemed like a good idea at the time....it always does.  I was working on this monoprint from the small collection I was talking about yesterday.  As you can see, lots of stitch..  The piece is on a scrap of muslin I got from a friend.  I don't usually work on muslin, but it was to hand, and there was paint and... you get my drift. 

The sections that are reading as very pale blue at the top of the piece, were originally white: because there was such a lot of white in there, and because I don't much like white, I popped a small piece of lutradur behind it, which was blues and purples...it worked very nicely, and didn't add any bulk to the piece at all.  Sadly, it didn't do much for the bottom left hand corner, so I decided to add some more paint.  So I mixed some up, and, rather than paint it on, printed it on, instead.  And then I trimmed it a bit, because I felt it was just too dominant...and got this.

Which is altogether better.  And put it aside to dry.  And then I thought, better wash up the piece of glass I was using to monoprint from (no gelli plates here, I'm too mean, and am quite happy with the traditional method).  And realised that there was still a blob of paint on the glass...and I really don't like washing perfectly good paint down the sink.  You so know what's coming next, right?  Yes, more monoprints.

The one I've just shown you was very landscape-y, so I thought I'd continue in that vein.

Each print has a 'ghost' print, made from the remains of the paint on the glass: I often prefer the ghost prints for stitch, because the paint suggests, rather than dominates, leaving ample room for stitch.  But of course, the excess paint had been blue, and I'd scooshed out some Naples Yellow and there was too much...it's becoming a theme, this, isn't it?  So...

The blob at the bottom of the ghost is a bit unfortunate, but I'll trim that off before I start...otherwise, these are okay.  I suspect that there's a larger painting waiting to get out of this... it's part of the joy of monoprinting, that things for development are often suggested by this spontaneous way of working. By this time, I was on a roll, but was starting to feel tired, so I finished off with these, adding the paint straight onto the glass, so that there wasn't any left over.   I've been reading about Sean Scully's work, after watching a documentary on him on the Beeb...' this pair is a definite nod in his direction.And then, reader, I washed the glass.  And that gives me enough to play with until next Monday, when I may well paint again....mwahaha...