Monoprints

Have you ever made a monoprint? They are easy to do and an interesting exercise in drawing.

What you need is an absorbent paper, a pencil, ink and a glass surface.

Brayer out the ink on the glass to a consistent coating. Slightly dampen the paper and lay it over the ink surface making sure there aren't any air bubbles, but do not rub the paper. Tricky, but easy to get the hang thereof.

For these drawings, I used some printing ink from the tail-end of a tube that was going to be thrown out after an art class.  (We will discuss art hoarding at another time. )

After you get the ink-glass-paper setup, begin drawing free hand to the paper surface. Press firmly to make sure the pencil strokes will transfer to the underside of the paper. Light rubbing is now permitted if you think it will add anything to the picture. You will know how this will work after you've done a few drawings.

When you are finished, carefully peel the paper off the ink ground.

Here's two drawings I made from some left-over newsprint, left-over ink and a piece of picture frame glass. (Now I wish I had used better paper, but there it is.)

This drawing shows some light rubbing.

The resultant art work has a very distinctive look and will come out reversed-image. Which may be a surprise to you and may make you correct some drawing idiosyncrasies you may have and didn't know about until then.













This drawing was done years before I lived in Bahrain and actually saw scenes like this. Sights like this was very common and would not depict people who were destitute or empoverished. It could very well be village women in town with items to sell.