Monoprinting experiments

This weekend Jeff and I were trying out some monoprinting techniques. I was using a photo of Andrew Bird from Flickr for reference, making a pencil sketch of that photo to work from.


This was the sketch I made for reference.


My first attempt was done using raw umber oil paint. Not bad for a first try - I was able to get some interesting textures from wiping the oil paint with a paper towel after I mixed it with some turpenoid.


For my second print I used oil based printing ink. Like the first one, there are some parts of it I like, but overall it's more of a learning piece. I think the printing ink is better used for block printing because a lot of the details that were painted on the glass didn't transfer that well. Even though the ink was oil based, it still dried too fast.


I went back to using oil paint for the third print, but I think I used too much turpenoid because it came out much lighter than I wanted. I do like the splatters and the areas where the paint and turps bled.

I definitely want to play around with this process more until I can get it to a point where I feel like I can control the outcome of the prints better. I really like the texture that the transfer process brings out. Once these prints are drier I'm planning to scan them and try combining the prints with some digital painting. These are just photos of the prints. They were all done on 11" x 14" paper.

Hawaiian Hills and Valley

A watercolor sketch based on a photo of Hawaii from a 1970's National Geographic.

Laundry Day

Based on a photo of a street in Italy from a 1970's National Geographic.

Sketchbook Pages

Here are a few pages from my sketchbook. I was playing around with acrylic paint, and a few collage elements on the first two pictures.

Gallery R Show

Last Thursday, on May 21, my class had the opening reception at Gallery R for our thesis show. The show exhibited work that was by our students from our twelve weeks of student teaching, in addition to a piece of work by each of our cooperating teachers and one piece of our own from the past year. The opening was packed with people and it was a great success. The show will be up at Gallery R until June 6. Here are some photos of the work by my students. My two student teaching placements involved high school and then first through fifth grade.









And just a reminder that prints of Pirate Queen are available right here.

Ceramic Rainforest Plaques - Toucan Example

I'm student teaching at an elementary school (1st through 5th grades) for six weeks. Next week I'll be starting my third week there. This is the project that I'm doing with my 3rd grade classes. I made this example to show them, trying to keep it as simple as possible. They're learning about the rainforest in their normal classrooms, so I thought it would be fine to tie their art project into that since they're all really interested in that subject right now.

My students are all making a rainforest animal of their choice on a clay plaque, using cookie cutters and stencils to cut out shapes and also using clay tools to cut out more free form or organic shapes. I showed them art by Charley Harper to give them examples of how you can build an animal out of shapes. We'll be using acrylic paint to add color, since I won't be there long enough to do a bisque firing and a glaze firing with the classes. The students will also be incorporating little pre-fired ceramic tiles into their animal plaques.

Judgment

I should have been doing homework, but I did this instead. It's been waaaaay too long since I had time to just play with art that wasn't related to school. I'd gotten an idea in my head after watching the recent Lost episode "Dead Is Dead" and had scribbled out some thumbnail sketches in my notebook during class in the evening. This week off from school seemed like the perfect opportunity to do some art for fun, and I had some digital painting techniques I wanted to mess around with, so Ben got to be my test subject.

This originally started out as a dark brown and white colored pencil drawing on gray Canson paper and gradually morphed into this as I started painting it in Photoshop. The textures used in this digital painting are a combination of ones I made on my own (by painting and scanning ink washes on watercolor paper) and textures from CG Textures. The final picture measures 9" x 12".

EDIT: This picture received a Daily Deviation award on deviantArt - what an exciting surprise!

Earth Day Print Shop Special

In honor of Earth Day, deviantART will donate 10% of ALL prints sales from April 22nd - 25th, 2009 to The Nature Conservancy. You can support independent artists while helping to support the planet! If you've been thinking about purchasing anything from my print shop, now would be a great time to take advantage of this special.