I have also been meaning to use oil paints as printing medium rather than the oil-based, washable relief inks I've been using so far.
I am preparing for a couple of oil paintings of the two scenes I'm working on, but I am not quite there yet, I feel. But one way of moving towards these was trying to include some of WK's pigments of choice: notably cadmiums. I had bought cadmium reds and yellows very early on when I started oil painting but have never used them so far. There are a couple of powerful pigments I'm fairly familiar with,
But, yesterday was the day: I prepared a palette, including also a pale violet grey, a pale rose, lime green, prussian and ultramarine blue and some umber to soften this in-your-face-pigment-fest.
I had new copper plates I wanted to try and here are my results:
Trees on Water, Monotype 2
Monotype with oil paints on Tosa Shi paper,
20x15cm
Trees on Water, Monotype 3
Monotype with oil paints on Tosa Shi paper,
20x15cm
I diluted the paint with a mix of turps/stand oil, ended up wetting the paper and with the final, a ghost print, I did quite a lot backdrawing to get most of the ink onto the paper. The mix of paint/medium may need some more experimenting, but I am taken with the marks and the yellows.
I also tried some reductive monotypes: inking up the plate in ultramarine and removing ink to build up the scene - with brushes, painting knives, paper towels, and at points adding more paint (also in black and prussian blue). These are very different, much more abstract and moody. I will try this out more.
4 comments:
Gesa some of those colours are just so lovely. I'm intrigued by some of the colours you mention using, because I can't instantly see where they are, and that made me *really* look. I can't wait to see more of this line of work.
nice work :>)
have you tried using a sheet of acetate as a plate for monoprinting - they work really well
I just found your blog through my interest in Joan Eardley -- love the poem you included with that post. And now I see you writing about Wolf Kahn -- this must be my lucky day!
Monoprinting can be scary, letting the mediums take control, but I hope you continue with your explorations. Come by and visit sometime!
Hi Kelly, - what a nice surprise too, and I'll be back for more reading at your blog!
As for the monoprinting: I've done quite a lot of different work around this scene - and the little control over the monotypes was really helpful, in particular with the monochrome one.
Vivien - yes, I saw your comment on acetate. No. I haven't so far. But I am VERY intent to try a large format, and just discovered that 40x50cm copper plate costs £20, so I may improvise with two acetates taped together. That'll be the next experiment.
Cath - LOL - there's no pthalos in here, but did you find some of the purple? I was really impressed with the cadmiums - yellow I know reasonably well, but this strength, wow... red's still a funny hue for me, but I'll be doing more with the yellows. As for ultramarine: I haven't used it much recently and the clarity of it when mixed with white is quite stunning after all the greenness of the other blues I've been using. Interesting - and with all the strange pastel sticks I've used, I'm getting rather comfortable with it all.
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