Brayer Paintings-trace monotypes and drawings

 

"And Just Like that It was over. "

I have a folder of work that I've been creating, off-and-on, for a half-dozen years. These odd, mostly abstract or vaguely recognizable images I've been calling brayer paintings but they are more correctly referred to as transfer monotypes and/or ink drawings, created by drawing or painting directly onto the paper with a brayer, or indirectly by the transfer of ink off a glass plate by rubbing or marking a sheet of paper from the back, while it is face-down on a inked glass slab.  

 While I mostly work with water-based pigments and the Japanese method of woodblock prints,  I make traditional western prints too--drypoints and etchings and also occasional works incorporating letterpress text, all of which are printed using oil-based relief inks, usually rolled onto a slab or glass plate, and then transferred to the plate or mobile type. After the day's work is over, clean-up means getting the excess ink off the plate,  first by scraping it off with a piece of scrap cardstock or by placing newsprint on the plate and rubbing that to get the ink off before using vegetable oil and soap and water to wash the plate and brayer. 

 

 

Untitled, (Failing Memory)

But as I noticed that I sort of liked the newsprint or paper towels that I lifted off the glass, the ink transferred to the face down surface, it was an easy thing to start making them on purpose,  using clean pieces of bond paper--acid free printing (xerox) paper--and deliberately working to pull off ink in a semi-guided way. I could lay the clean paper face down on the inked slab, and then rub it with my fingers or fingernails, the back handle of a paintbrush or any simple implement.On others, I worked directly with the brayer, using it to draw on the paper directly and layering thin and thick layers of ink.

   

"Sleep and Death" (two doors).

 

I liked the results, but realized that I should try to use good paper rather than copy paper.  However using paper of better quality made it much harder to work freely. With good Japanese paper,  there is always a hesitation and fear of "wasting" an expensive piece of handmade paper by making a mistake or ruining a promising start, and that hindered the spontaneity and directness that made these simple works interesting.  

I solved that by (for the most part) by cutting down whole sheets into A4 size and having a folder--at hand--and reserved for just this purpose. With a folder full of paper, it's been a little easier to work without worrying too much about making a mistake.  So at the end of my occasional oil-based projects, I usually find time to make 1 or 2 pieces using the leftover ink and the wet brayer. 

I consider these part drawing, part painting, and part printmaking. They start off as abstract markings, but gradually they start to get pushed into a direction guided by the evolving image.  Like passing clouds that take on the likeness of animals or figures, my ink-slab drawings start to suggest subjects and titles. 

"Passing Storm" 2020

 

 

 

Well see how far these can go.  I'd like to work a little bigger--try with a bigger brayer and a full sheet of paper--or go even bigger but with both bigger and smaller brayers or ink rollers....the key is to keep making them, without thinking too much. 

Monoprint workshop Day 2

The last day of Beth Fein's Akua color monoprint/monotype workshop at the Kala Institute in Berkeley was a few weeks ago but I dove back into the September work schedule so couldn't update the blog.

I forgot my camera so I'll keep it brief. She demonstrated some viscosity resists/monotypes--changing the viscosity using various color modifiers to have the thinner colors resist the heavier for some spontaneous, mostly uncontrollable effects.

Rather interesting but a bit too uncontrolled for me. I'm big on control.
But we also worked on some Chine Colle'; using stencils to block out portions of color and by using decent thin washi or japanese papers using these now colored papers to go back in to add to the print in multiple layers.

Here's what I managed to get out during the day's session. The dark "froot loop cascade" is a fairly straight forward monotype with rolled color underneath, then painted color in the next layer. The circles were stencilled out and then using the cleaned plate painted in again using bright colors and a brush. All in all there are probably 4-5 layers/passes through the press.
The ghost had the various layers run through after the darker version. But in this case I used the cut out stencil circles accumulated during the days printings glued back in the ghost base using wheat paste and the press. I like the chine colle' pale version better but the brush strokes on the dark one are lively and appealing--if a bit childish.

The last two were sort of "I'm getting tired and making lots of mistakes" but the mushroom cloud stencil thingy is sort of interesting and looks like if I push it a little bit might make a finished piece... I just don't know what yet. And the expanding cross/talisman will go through the press another 4-5 times before I decide if I should keep it or just throw it out.

I had fun. Have a nice base now from which to start experimenting at home and will see what I can come up with on Big Blue.
Mostly I wanted an alternative to the slow, carefully planned woodblock prints that are my main focus and these monotypes allow me to get into the studio and play with some ideas and colors in a way that's more direct and spontaneous and will allow me to flesh out some ideas before I decide if they're interesting enough to try in a multiblock woodblock print.

Poppy 2

Well, salvage time. Mom's birthday and I didn't send flowers. (I didn't forget, she was in Norway! Cruising her way around the fjords).
This was the first pull off of Big Blue; it printed very spotty, the red was all wrong and the green dried on the plate and didn't print onto the dry paper.
So, watercolor to the rescue.
Daniel Smith artist color and some pure pigment brushed into the petals to get that vibrant red I wanted. Lots of greens mixed both on the paper and palette.
It's a little overworked and the drawing's a bit off. But it's way better than it was before. Hope I can get it dry and in the mail before the ship returns to port.