Sunday 6 November 2011

Monotype Mark making

I had a treat yesterday - a whole day playing with monotype - at a lovely workshop at the RWA led by printmaker Ros Ford. It was arranged by Bristol Drawing School who are now based at the RWA. It was a great opportunity to do a practical workshop in such inspiring surroundings - we were able to go and look at the exhibitions for inspiration as we worked.
It was a very productive day, this is one section of one of the walls of prints that were made:


The workshop was directed in avery experimental way, but Ros encouraged us to break through our safety zone which was just what I needed at the moment to keep moving me forward. I didn't come away with a finished piece, but I did leave with the knowledge of how to work with monotype and how to avoid some basic errors. I also left with a bundle of intriguing starting points and more of the fascinating mark making which I think will direct key aspects of my practice over the next year.

Here are some of the marks I was encouraged to make during the day, some of them are sumptuous, and were made using surprisingly basic drawing materials such as blocks of wood and bottle tops:





I like the fact that even if you try hard to write backwards neatly, it still prints with awkwardness about it.
Marks were made with a plastic fork (and spatula)




2 comments:

Sara Bowen said...

How lovely! It looks as if you had great fun. I know Ros and I bet she was a great teacher...

LAC EMP 2020 said...

Wendy, I love the deep black area of the first print. It is gloriously inky and I'm dying to know how you did it. It looks like the outer rings of a planet to me. I can also really see such energy in the marks in the final print. What a fabulous day. Looking at that wall of prints in close up shows some lovely subtle shapes and tones. Experimentation and using the humble things of life to make marks sounds like a real treat to me. I envy you!