Sunday, January 30, 2011

Monotypes Week 2

My second week of printing monotypes was an experiment with dark field monotypes. A dark field monotype starts with a plate coated in black ink with a sheet of dry printing paper on top. An image is then drawn onto the back of the sheet of paper. Pressure from the drawing utensil (pen, pencil, stick, cotton swab, fingertip, etc...) transfers ink onto the paper, leaving a white area on the plate. After the drawing is transferred, the front of the paper will have dark lines on a white background. Running the plate through the press will create a print with white lines on a dark background.
For my prints I used a drawing I made while in Rome this past spring. The drawing is of the obelisk in St. Peter's square in the Vatican. As with most prints, the image turns out backwards from the original drawing. Next time I will probably reverse my image on tracing paper before using it for a print.

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