Variations: Masks and Multicolours - Landscape

When you can see the possibilities of this process, make a print depicting a landscape of a townscape using the print of different items. You will have to be creative here and translate the real textures of the landscape into the impression of your chosen objects


The challenge for this part of the exercise was to interpret some of the textures I had experimented with and to use them to represent textures of the landscape. My first thought was to use the sprinkles of talc to represent stars in the night sky and to use leaves or vegetation to represent trees as well as the holey/lacey fabric to make an impression to look like the 'patchwork quilt' effect of fields on the hillside. My attempts at this were not really successful - the colours and textures didn't really give the desired effect and registration was poor. 

First attempt using textures to represent landscape oil-based ink
on cartridge paper. Not successful the green is very dark so
the texture of the hillside doesn't show

Second attempt using three layers and using grasses to try to
represent trees - registration is poor and the textures are not as
distinct as expected. Printed on Japanese paper.

I was quite enamoured of the talc effect and I though that another way I could use this would be to use a multicoloured base layer and then overprint in a very dark colour using the talc as a mask to give the impression of fireworks in a night sky. This thought triggered nostalgia for happy hours spent as a child colouring paper with coloured wax crayons and covering a coloured base layer with lack crayon before scratching into it. to reveal the colours beneath.

I printed a base layer containing patches of process yellow and hawthorn sonic orange fluorescent ink as well as leaving an area of white. I then overprinted using Prussian blue masking out an area of the yellow at the bottom of the plate in a geometric approximation to an urban skyline. I sprinkled three areas of talc onto the upper part and scratched trails away from these using cotton buds. On an impulse I also picked up a piece of thread that was hanging around in my bag and coiled that up on the plate too. After printing this layer I overprinted again using black using a slightly offset negative mask over the sky and a few small rectangles as positive masks to represent illuminated windows in the urban buildings.

Three layer masked monoprint using talc, cotton
thread and drawing into the ink with cotton buds
to represent  an urban landscape with fireworks

Second impression (ghost print) of the above
print with rearrangement of the thread

The offset masking of the building shapes worked quite well and I really liked the mask effect created by the thread which gave a much more distinct mark than I had expected given how narrow the thread was. The talc fireworks looked appropriately fiery in orange and white. The disappointing thing was that the Prussian blue was not sufficiently opaque to cover the fact that the base layer was multicoloured. 

I decided to continue with the urban landscape theme. I had recently visited the Georgia O'Keefe exhibition at Tate Modern and I decided to use one of the photographs of New York by Alfred Stieglitz (O'Keefe's partner) as a starting point. Click Here to view the photograph The image in question is a view from the artist's window over Hoboken. I chose it because it contained several textures which I could try to interpret but the shapes were relatively simple. 

I decided that some of the tapes I had used at the Leeds Workshop would be good to represent some of the textures I had seen in the photograph. I used foil tape and mesh tape as will as cutting shapes out of duck tape and using strips of masking tape. I printed in multiple layers and tried various types of paper including cartridge, coated paper and Japanese paper. Some of the prints were more successful then others but ultimately I wasn't really satisfied with any of these prints. Having set out with a fairly fixed idea of what I wanted to achieve and getting a different result led to disappointment. I also made the mistake of forgetting to add cobalt driers to the stay open inks so they were really slow to dry. This meant that the prints got stickier and sticker and messier and messier with each subsequent layer. 
In addition to multilayer printing and texture I also tried back drawing to emphasise certain features in some of the prints (see next section). I retrospect it would have been better to offset the image onto a monoprint plate before printed as it would have allowed greater opportunity to alter and control the final images. 

These prints were all taken using my bottle jack press - this press is really more suited to relief printing than monoprints as it doesn't generate as much pressure as an etching press. 

Textured (collagraph-type) plate on cardboard constructed using
 masking tape, meshtape, duck tape and foil tape

The sky was printed first by masking off the urban skyline area.
Then a direct print was taken over this using the textured plate and
a mixture of ultramarine and black. This print is on coated paper

Second pass (ghost) print as above but with the addition of back-drawing
in black for windows. Coated paper. 

I felt that the image was too dark so tried overprinting a third layer of
light yellow in selected areas. In this one I also employed back-drawing.
The wet ink in the sky area immediately picked up the yellow ink.
I hadn't masked this area off - I did so in subsequent prints. This print is
on cartridge paper.

Ghost print as above but without back-drawing and with masking of the
sky. Japanese paper.

Another attempt on cartridge paper. The mesh tape skyscraper
is lost in the dark sky on this one. There is grey underprinting on the
buildings before the textured layer was applied. 

I tried to highlight the mesh skyscraper on the right by over-printing in
a paler colour to pick it out of the dark sky. Unfortunately the overprinting
on the crumpled foil-tape building at the left side has covered over
some of the texture.

Another ghost print on coated paper 

I finished this exercise feeling frustrated that I had not produced a print that I was happy with. However this is all part of the learning process. I had learnt several things not to do and had also realised that it is not always easy to translate an image you have in your mind's eye into a print as unexpected things happen when you are printing. This is part of the excitement of printing but can also get frustrating if you are too rigid about what you require as an outcome. So far I have produced my best work when starting out without a fixed idea and responding to the first prints I produce to take me in a certain direction. 

What I learnt 

• Not to be too rigid with planning and expectations but respond to the prints as they develop
• Remember to add cobalt driers if printing with 'stay open' inks - especially if working with multiple layers
• Try to understand whether an ink is opaque or not before overprinting with it - opaque if you want it to completely cover the underneath layer. Translucent if you want colour mixing or or texture to show through. 
• Remember the option of offsetting textures onto monoprint plates which allows you to subsequently manipulate further

To work on

• Learn more about the characteristics of your inks - translucency/opacity
• more attempts at producing figurative images will be needed. 

Variations: Masks and multicolours - Texture

For this segment I experimented with various objects and fabrics - I made impressions in the ink on a freshly inked plate and then printed the impressions onto paper. I found this worked best when I put the items through the press on the plate with scrap paper over it to make the impressions before printing the impressions onto relatively thin paper (in many cases I used regular printer paper). Below are some examples:

Texture made using lace and embroidered fabric
using an etching press

Impression of leaves using an etching press

Texture from coarse hessian -type fabric and
from Lacey fabric with lots of holes - etching press

Print using the lacey holy fabric as a mask leaving areas of white

More subtle impressions using leaves and a bottle jack press

Impressions made by hand using fabrics
printed on the etching press

Impressions made using a foil pie dish

Impressions from hessian and masking tape

My favourite from this series using the texture of a woven placemat and a sprinkling of talc - the talk leaves
bright white spots and spatters which look quite cosmic

The instructions also suggested using solvents -  I had already had a try with this in a previous exercise and really enjoyed it (see the image below)

Image created by flicking and pouring spirit onto
oil based ink

I also had fun putting bubble wrap through the etching press to create an impression on an inked plate and the printing this. The bubble wrap burst in the process of making the impression so was quite noisy. 

Print made using bubblewrap and overprinted using
a negative mask. An attempt to backdrop into it
was unsuccessful owing to poor alignment but I like the
texture created using bubblewrap

At another workshop led by Mick Welbourn at Leeds Print Workshop, I experimented with more texture. We used a rapid collagraph type technique which required no varnishing as it employed various types of tape stuck onto card. The tapes used included duck tape or gaffer tape, masking tape, anti-slip tape (which is like coarse sandpaper), mesh tape and foil tape (used for sealing ducts and flues). I just made a random arrangement of sections of these tapes to try out the textures. I printed directly from this collagraph-type plate using various colour combinations. 

Print from collagraph plate using various types of tape in process yellow and cyan

The mesh tape gave a very distinctive texture with the mesh picked out against the white background. I especially likes the anti-slip tape which gave a less distinct shape with a grain appearance. The foil tape gave different appearances depending on the degree of crumpling it got before being stuck down. Duck/gaffer tape came in various textures depending on the thread densities and masking tape gave a relatively close/dense texture. A lot of potential for future development here. I also liked the way that overlapping two different types of tape altered the textures as well at the halo that occurred around some of the thicker tapes when they were printed. 

Print from the same plate as above (inverted) printed in cyan and magenta

The same plate again printed once in process yellow then inverted and overprinted in magenta. I
especially like the overprinting of the red mesh over the yellow shapes and the bright yellow
halo around the denser red shapes

The same plate again - printed three times, once in yellow, once in cyan
and once in magenta with deliberate offsetting between layers

The next step was to ink up the cardboard collagraph plate and to transfer that ink onto a plastic monoprint plate. Essentially this is like 'offset printing' - and almost the opposite of what I had been doing by making impressions of objects onto a fully inked plate. This meant that the image could be worked into further by the addition of masks and scraping and drying into the ink on the monoprint plate. 

Monoprint made by offsetting the inked up collagraph plate onto a
monoprint plate then adding masks of the holey/lacey fabric as well as
drawing with a sharp point into the circular shape near the centre

Another impression of the above plate taken onto coated paper with
reversal of the masks so that the ink soaked side made contact with the
paper

Further variation of the above with overprinting in yellow

Yet another variation of the yellow/blue combo with additional masks
including feathers

 One of the ghost prints was not particularly interesting - it was a bit too thin. I decided to continue to work on this one using a circular mask. I printed lots of further layers on this one including a layer in which I used two colours rolled in strips across the plate. I also included indigo as well as the three process colours. I was quite please with tis one it some to have quite a good tonal and colour balance and there was just a suggestion of the previously added texture showing through to add interest. 

Multilayer monoprint using process yellow, magenta, cyan and indigo with applied textures and using a
circular mask with reversal. 

What I learnt

• There are many many ways to apply texture to a monoprint
• Textures can be stuck onto cardboard and the offset onto a monoprint plate 
• This then allows the subsequent use of masks and drawing or wiping on the plate
• Distinct impressions can be applied to ink by putting the items on the plate through the etching press
• Care must be taken not to put thick or sharp items through the press as they will damage the blankets
• More subtle textures can be made by making impressions by hand on the plate with the chosen textural item
• Sometimes a print that looks uninteresting can become interesting by several layers of overprinting

Things to work on and learn

• More textural experiments
• Trying to incorporate these textures into some kind of figurative work
• Still need more registration practice

Variations : Masks and Multicolours - simple multilayer prints

At last a chance to experiment and have fun after the frustration of the previous exercise. I did this first batch of prints at Leeds Print Workshop using an etching press and Hawthorn 'stay open' inks. I used the process colours, yellow, cyan and magenta as well as indigo. The beauty of the process colours is that they are translucent so colour mixing occurs as layers are overprinted. They also don't tend to go muddy and make sludge brown after several layers of mixing. 

I started off by creating some masks by cutting figures out of magazines - I only had one of each figure so that limited the possibilities somewhat but I enjoyed moving the masks around and reversing them in a haphazard fashion and this created some exciting prints. I got so absorbed in the process I wasn't really recording what I was doing - just reacting to what was on the print when positioning subsequent layers - I would not be able to repeat these images again without putting a great deal of thought into how I had layered them the first time. However, I really like this way of working spontaneously rather than meticulously planning. 

Registration for subsequent layers of overprinting was achieved using a registration sheet marked with the size of the plate and the size of the paper. However - the accuracy of registration is variable from print to print - it seems no matter how careful I am in trying to place the paper I still can't consistently achieve accurate registration. I suspect this will take a lot of practice.

Overprinted masked print in process
yellow and indigo - the mask of the dancer
moved slightly leaving a white area

Overprinted masked print using only
process yellow - ghost print of
the first layer and then reversal of the
masks from the yellow and indigo print
printed using the yellow transferred to the
reversed mask

Multilayer print with the same masks in
process yellow, process magenta
and indigo with areas of white paper
showing

Multilayer print using the same colours
as above with ghost printing in indigo
achieved by reversing masks

On some of the images, oblique lines started to appear on the figures. It took me a while to work out where these had come from. Initially I thought tat I must have creased the mask as I placed it on the plate - but this was not the case. In fact, the lines had come from the ink on the magazine paper - the model in the photograph was standing behind a series of  mets railings on a staircase. This was an interesting development - adding an extra dimension to the masked print. 

A less successful print - the mask stuck
and had to be torn away (too much ink
for the thin magazine paper to cope with)
Oblique lines on the standing figure are
from the original magazine photograph 

I really like the texture on this print and the halo around the figures (although
this might actually be considered a less successful print precisely because
of what I like about it!) - these are 'ghost' images (not first pass prints) on
coated paper. 

Great colour mixing on this print - multilayering the translucent process colours
yellow, cyan and magenta

Next I played around with texture a little bit (more about texture in the next section). As I was using oil-based ink, when cleaning the plate I did not wipe it completely dry so that when rolling ink onto it the wet patches resisted the ink (in effect the opposite idea to a wax resist when using watercolours) - this created some interesting effects. I also tried wiping away ink and drawing into it - although this was less successful on this occasion - the ink was extremely tacky - it needed an additive to make it wipe better.  

Multilayer print with texture from
partial wiping of water resting oil based
ink plus masking and multilayers

Experiment with wiping, texturing and drawing into ink

Rolling a second contrasting colour directly onto the plate with the patches of ink from the resist after the water had dried gave a pleasing texture. I subsequently used masks in simple geometric shapes when overprinting. Reversing the shapes and overprinting several times resulted in some interesting effects with the edges of some shapes appearing more prominent than the body. Again with the process colours being designed for overprinting, the underlying texture showed through. 

Multilayer textured and masked monoprint. Registration is poor but I really like the texture from the
'water resist' (inculpate wiping away of water when cleaning the plate) and direct rolling of a second colour
(yellow) over this first layer

Multilayer masked monoprint - there is less texture on this one but I like the
red/cyan haloes of the geometric shapes on the yellow achieved by multiple
reversals of the masks and 'ghost printing' - registration is not great unfortunately

What I learnt

• I enjoy working in a spontaneous way with monoprint and developing the print in response to each layer
• Incompletely wiping water from the plate before rolling oil based ink creates an interesting 'resist' texture
• Multiple reversals of masks can create interesting effects
• Hawthorn 'stay open inks' really need an additive to wipe easily
• The ink from a printed mask (such as magazine photos) can transfer to your print
• Process colour inks are great for colour mixing with over-printing

Things to work on

• More ways of creating texture
• Registration still needs more work - designate one corner and always register to this or find another way of registering prints. 

Two Coloured Masked Monoprints: attempt 3

I still wasn't quite happy with my attempts at the two coloured masked monoprints - the last lot were reasonably well aligned but they were not even prints as I hadn't adjusted the press correctly. 

I chose to use the heron image again because it was smaller and I thought I would be more likely to be able to get even pressure over a smaller area. I was working at WYPW and they had some samples of hawthorn stay open inks in indigo and chartreuse green which I tried together and found that they gave a good contrast. I managed to get a more even print but because the ink was quite opaque I couldn't see where to place the masks relative to each other - it was of no help to create a registration sheet because the heron mask did not contact the edge of the plate at any point. I was still making offset prints. At this point I was getting quite frustrated and thinking that this was a ridiculously difficult exercise for the start of a level 1 course. 

I realised that I needed some help with this so I asked another printmaker for ideas. Mick suggested placing the mask on print - then positioning the plate on top and flipping the whole lot over to print while hoping that nothing moved. Eureka! Why didn't I think of that? This was a much more accurate way of lining things up - obviously there is always the risk that something will move while trying to flip the plate/paper/mask sandwich over but the results were much much better:

This print is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. The chartreuse background is not quite even and there is a finger mark in the corner. However at this point I had spent so much time on this particular exercise I really needed to move on so I decided to accept this one. 

I played around with a few ghost and multilayer prints and then cleared away to put a lid on this frustrating exercise. 

What I learnt:

• Ask for help if you need it !!!!!
• It is acceptable to position the plate over the paper then flip if you are struggling with alignment
• The indigo ink is lovely to work with - It can produce a very dark blue but in ghost prints it produces a lovely steely blue reminiscent of faded denim