Under the Big Sky

Above, a nice landscape by Ron Zito, from my monotype workshop Tuesdays at the Art Students League. Ron hasn't done a whole lot of monotypes, but is an accomplished painter, and he understood immediately that gesture and atmospherics will get you a lot more when working with ink on paper, than detail. I wish I could show you the subtle texture he got in the sky better than this snapshot, I think it makes the print. We had some other nice landscapes, and I'll post again soon, but several artists chose to work in abstract, and I've got a small portfolio of those here.

Preview

The first class will feature an introduction to my thinking and philosophy about the obscure medium of monotype, as summed up by the workshop's title: Spontaneous Graphic Textures. That is, many seem to approach monotype as a painting or watercolor, but the process seems capable of so much more. 

I'll do a demo that emphasizes the amount of different textures that can be gotten in the simplest image, using the simplest tools. 

We'll start making prints right away, thanks to the utter simplicity of monotype as compared to the technical processes of etching and lithography. You can put ink on a plexiglas plate (above) and run it through the press right away. The key is how much ink you apply, so that simpler ways of applying it seem appropriate the first day. For example, rollers ( brayer) apply ink in a controlled, even manner. Yet the many ways you can apply, then distress or texture the ink on the smooth plate allows for a lot of unique imagery. Sometimes, what you take out of a monotype is as important as what you put in.

Wish me luck, and I will try to get some student work to post at some point, if they are willing. 

prelude to a squish

Back to the press to work on some larger workSee the finished work here in a few days. See other finished work here. Find out about my upcoming workshop here.