I havent made any prints since I graduated college in 2011, so when I was approached by a friend of mine to TA for her printmaking class at LTCC this quarter I jumped on the opportunity. Printmakers and painters are age old frenemies. Printmakers work and think backwards, always with the end result in mind. There are a myriad of steps to take to make a print that range from working the surface (in my case wood or MDF), choosing paper, ink, bases, press pressure...the list goes on. For a painter like me, who can easily change a painting in half an hour, to work in a medium that requires so much patience and attention to detail is a stretch. In college I often loathed the printing process until I learned a processes that worked for me, namely monotype, woodcut and dry-point/intaglio copper etching.
PIctured above is a monotyped woodblock print. First I hand-painted the woodblock with printmaking ink, making sure to press the ink into the cuts. I printed this woodblock multiple times without adding more ink to create a more subtle ghost image. Then I washed off the woodblock and rolled-up a deep purplish black, registered my paper, and printed that over my ghost. The result is a pale wash of color underneath with a darker pop on top. Im pretty pleased with the results :) Back to the printshop today to try my hand at some more color variation!
What do you think?
Heres a shot of the woodblock I am hand painting before I print it.
A detail of the woodblock after I printed it.
