Making Monoprints in My Studio

"Nettle" oil on paper monoprint

Sometimes an artist needs to regain that element of play in work and monotypes are the way I have been playing this week. Many people see the word print and think it is a reproduction and sometimes that is the case, but with monoprints they are a one of a kind piece of art where printing is part of the creation process. I am going to show the method I used.

First I bought an 18 x 24 sheet of plexi-glass from Lowe's.
I grabbed some blank newsprint, art paper ( I used Arches oil paper for my oil prints and watercolor paper for an acrylic print) a ruler, a marker and brayer.
I traced the paper I was using on the newsprint and also the marked out the smaller area I want to actually print.
 I traced it with pencil and then went over with marker so it would be really easy to see.

I started with oil color inside of the printing area and chose two pale colors for the first layer.


Once I was satisfied, I carefully lined up my paper with the outside marks I made on the newsprint and went over the paper with a brayer.
The first layer had really soft colors so I continued with a few brighter layers without cleaning the plexi-glass.


I used the same process of lining up the paper and rolling.
I worked from light to dark on this one but sometimes you might want to do the reverse. It is also fun to erase each layer after printing and before adding the next layer.
Here are a few other I made over the weekend.
The first was made with a sheet of acetate that I turned over onto the paper and it should be noted that I wiped it clean between each layer.

"Kelp" oil on paper monoprint

"Prairie grass" acrylic on paper monoprint

Are you going to give this a whirl?