The brief was to produce a series of monotype prints on the theme of balance.
What I’ve found with this exercise is that the results fall out of the process rather than being pre-planned and then executed. I had a vague notion of what I was trying for but really no more than that.
Based on previous experiments, I’ve found that torn-up newspaper gives good results with the thick relief ink I’m using. I’ve also tried thin pheasant-tail grass stems and heads but with limited success. I’m also using square post-it notes.
What I’ve done here is: 1) ink-up, lay some paper/grass on the plate and take a print (to be discarded) 2) take the paper/grass off and take another print – this gives good detail 3) re-ink and re-mask with various paper shapes – take a print using the previously printed page 4) remove the masking paper and take another print – and cycle round again.
I ended up with a series of complimentary pairs of prints that I am showing here side-by-side – in balance!
I also experimented with wetting the page before printing (the ink is water-based) with interesting results.
The word ‘Mind’ on a scrap of newspaper survived the process – interesting – possibilities there.