I have been hoping to get back into the classroom for a while and trying to mesh my erratic work schedule ( I work different shifts every week) with a class schedule has been hard. But I found out about a monotype workshop held at the KALA art istitute in Berkeley,CA in time to ask for the two Saturday's off that the class was held.
So I managed to work into the wee hours Friday night, wake up really early Saturday morning, drive the 1 1/2 hrs to Berkeley and found the place easily enough. It's a grand old three story brick factory and the whole upper floor has been converted to a printmaking atelier with facilities for screenprinting, letterpress, etching, monoprints etc. This is a short class focusing on monoprinting with Akua color nontoxic pigments and I'm hoping it will help me avoid the errors I made on my first attempts with the blue press. I had a great time, even if I managed to ink the wrong side of my transparent plexiglass plate a few times!! but otherwise had everything under control. It's a fun technique, allowing much spontaneity and for some fun (and not so fun surprises).
We worked on learning how to get even coats of color from this honey-based, water based color and how to do chine colle' and a little bit about viscosity printing and resists.
Here's a print of the work table with everybody's efforts at the end of the first day and a quick shot of my first efforts. I like my ghost prints the best. Whispers of color and nuanced effects that are much more delicate and evocative than my more heavy handed full-color efforts.
Hi Andrew. Neat stuff and I think I like the ghost prints as well, although it scares me a little. I'm doing a five hour Akua Kolor monotype workshop in a couple of weeks at a print co-op that looks remarkably similar to the one in your photo, and I need to start preparing. The thing that worries me is that I've only pulled monotypes by hand and have no idea what to expect on a press (guess I better find some time to try). It looks like you get some pretty solid coverage. I prefer nuances of color as well, and I know that a few people who are taking the workshop are doing so to see how I print. Maybe we just hand pull prints instead. Curious...did the workshop start with a demo? And what was used for the viscosity prints? I really like the way those red and black lines bled on your bottom print.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to the next installment on the class.
Take Care,
Andrea