I have always been enamored with all forms of printmaking and have been a collector myself over the past few years. The beauty of a hand-pulled print with all of their little idiosyncrasies that make them so unique is something that I am really drawn to. Already being a woodworking artist, I was drawn first to the style of relief woodcut printing. I tried my hand at it with my first small piece titled "Forever". Not only is the cutting process a really enjoyable and expressive experience, the printing process is equally enthralling. After hand pulling a small edition of 10 prints I hopped online to look at at some of the other methods of printmaking. I discovered Monotypes and attempted my first piece, and wow, it brought me back to my painting days for sure with how fluid the creating process is. Monotypes are printmaking in it's most bare bones form, you get once chance... one print and then you are done. No edition's can follow (you actually can pull one or maybe even two "ghost" prints and use them as the basis for a new piece, but the ghost prints come up extremely faint and give only a mere suggestion of what the original print really is).
There seem to be no rules when it comes to how you apply your ink and work out your image. I used the reductive method where the surface of the plate is completely inked and then the image is wiped from the dark field. Once you feel that the piece is where you would like it to be, you can pull your print from the glass plate. It's really bizarre trying to manipulate this thick ink in a way that you *think* might pull up nicely. I found that certain areas that I carefully blended down thinking that it would give me a grayish value never even showed up at all. It's going to be quite a process learning what levels of ink are necessary and how to maneuver them to achieve the look you desire.
Many artists then go in and work on the piece using other media, what came the most naturally to me was pencil. So then I went ahead and used a graphite pencil and sketched over top of the print to create the final piece. The glass plate is wiped clean and the final print is now a unique piece in an edition of only 1.
This was really an unusual experience for me and as with anything else there are tons of little things to learn that will come with time. On "Grieve" I originally wanted to leave a bare spot in the left side of her chest. Not being familiar with the process I neglected to realize at the time that the image will be printing in reverse. So the "hole" in her chest that was supposed to be where her heart was ended up printing as if it were on the right side of her chest. I giggled when I realized this. You take for granite sometimes the luxury of having an in-depth knowledge of your medium of choice. Thinking back, I remember clearly the challenges I faced with Pyrography and how much I really have learned along the way. I also learned many things from my first woodcutting experience in "Forever". One being that certain knife blades cut better in specific directions. So trying to cut against the grain with a gouge caused jagged edges where the v-tool cuts much cleaner going in that direction.
After working on these early pieces I found myself doing what I usually do and became critical of the end results. I started to wonder what I should even put out there and what I should keep here at home away from view, thinking that maybe after I got "better" at these processes that I would then put them out there for the world to see. After giving it thought, I decided the best thing to do is embrace the process. The process of learning a new medium and growing as an artist without insecurity (yeah we'll see how that works out for me). It's just so different. Pyrography at its core is a very structured medium, one that requires focus, precision and a relatively long-term commitment to the piece. This new found liberty to work in such a fluid manner has opened up a door that has been closed for quite sometime. These few experiments really were fun for me and I am thrilled to have finally tried my hand at printmaking and look forward to discovering new techniques.
Posts
