Monotype: Five More Minutes

Five More Minutes 4.5 x 6 Monotype Ghost with Watercolor

I think this might be the first or second monotype I ever did - in 2005 or so. Hard to believe my love affair with this versatile method of painterly printmaking is almost seven years old, but I think I love it more now than I did before. Each additional year I get to experiment with it leaves me ever more thrilled to have discovered it.

After inking my beveled zinc plate, I laid a sheet of paper over the plate and did a sketch of the image I wanted, which left a subtle map in the ink when I pulled the paper away. I've got the drawing close by for reference here. I'm removing ink in this photo (this is a Dark Field Monotype) in a subtractive method of mark making, with a pastel stomp.

After laying a sheet of BFK Rives paper on the still-wet plate, I ran it through the press, and all that pressure squeezing the paper against my inked plate pushes the pigment around, so that even if I was careful with details and subtle tones, the press will have it's way with the art. It slaps your hand when you get too fussy with the ink. I'm always surprised when I pull the print. That's the best part. :)

 Here is the monotype, and the plate above it, which had enough ink remaining on the surface to pull a second print, which is called a ghost, because it's a very faint suggestion of the monotype. The image at the top of this post was the ghost print, painted with watercolor after the ink dried.

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Art Quote
Until I started doing monotypes, I had never made an image without looking at something directly, but really - what's the difference between doing this (making a monotype) - I mean really, when we're out there drawing, or making our painting [on site, or from life], we have to turn away from nature. You know, we look, and then we look to our drawing, so there's a little time that's elapsed, so that - really - when we're out there making our drawing, we are in fact working from memory, because when we turn away from nature, we look to our invention, so one is always working from memory, but with notes.

The things that we think about in our heads, in painting and drawing, are parts of long, extended, evolving conversations that happen just as much when we're not painting and drawing. You know, driving around, or walking around, or riding a bike through neighborhoods, and looking at buildings and considering the quality of a pink wall next to a piece of yellow trim. All this stuff informs us, because as long as we're awake, we're processing everything. That process never stops. I mean, if we're really involved with our visual life, we're working all the time.

So, what I've found is there's something about this whole process of the monotype that lends itself to a certain kind of consideration that's more like drawing than painting, yet is also very similar to painting.

Stuart Shils 2009 (<---Click here to watch a video of Stuart making a monotype)