Monotypes

I am currently taking a monotype class at AIB and have fallen in love with this printmaking technique. It is unlike anything I have ever done before.

I am primarily a relief printmaker and I use linoleum blocks. The whole process of image making is different. It is a subtractive method and the graphic quality is what to appeals to me. But the monotypes force me to think like a painter. And it offers me the opportunity to indulge in some landscape imagery.

Unlike other forms of printmaking (intaglio, lithography, serigraphs, relief) monotypes are one of a kind, a unique piece of work on paper. They are not editioned. Only one or two impressions can be made before the ink on the plate is used up.

The plates can be zinc, copper, or plexiglass. I primarily use plexiglass. Oil based ink is then applied in various ways to the surface of the plate which is then run through a press to get an impression.

The dimensions of the above prints are 3" x 3". This size is quite difficult to print when you have plexi plates.

The imagery is not actually of a particular place. It is evocative of a lifetime of looking out car/train/plane windows and watching the landscape fly by in streams of color and motion.