The Art of Monotype Printing

This is a five-day class.

There are endless techniques and possibilities for making monotypes. Using water-based inks and printing by hand with a barren or spoon, we’ll spend the week experimenting with different approaches and sharing discoveries. Be prepared for surprises!

We’ll start with one color to try out different tools for mark-making. Bring from home any quirky item to draw with, for example, a comb, Q-tips, a sink scrubby, a toothbrush, lace, your thumb. Search around the WBS campus and shoreline for drawing tools such as sharp and blunt sticks, grasses, and stems.

Expanding the palette to 2 or more colors, we’ll try stenciling, overlaying with cut or torn paper (think Matisse), leaves and flowers from the meadow. If rockweed, it should be dryish (I speak from experience —splat!).

Along the way, we’ll look at the work of other artists and learn from their processes. At the end of the week, we’ll use some of, or parts of, our prints to assemble an accordion book as a record of the week’s exploration.