Day 3 & Print #2 at Wingtip Press Studio workshop on Stacked Monotypes
Rose worked us hard! Plus we were flat mates and spent evenings chatting and cooking dinner. I had to pull myself away from an extended evening chat just to get drawings sorted for this print. Fortunately, I seem to have landed on a good subject: Sheep. Saturday morning, with drawing in hand (scanned and reversed on the computer) I ventured into the second print. I think we all felt more confident having made it through our first image with quite a bit of success.
How much ink to remove? That became quite a quandary for this image. On the last print, I felt the yellow was lacking and was hoping for a gentle gradation of color via sheep… we shall see.
What I discovered was my application of ink happened to be stronger on this round. More ink could have removed during the yellow plate. Also the texture scribbled in with the kebab skewer didn’t show squat. Note to self: use blue layer for finer texture!
On to the red plate:
I felt more confident in removing lots of red. Will it be enough?
Now for the two colors on paper. Oh, that yellow is mighty bright! Guess this will be a sheep of a different color!
Since I roughly guessed at some of this layering, the final blue was going to be more difficult.
Lots of color needed to be removed for the green to appear.
Did I make the right choices? Should I have removed more blue in the coat? Will the background turn black enough? I keep having to remind myself that this is a learning process.
Below is the finished full color print. I learned quite a lot working this second image.
Now the softer ghost image.
You can see more work by our intrepid leader at Rosie Scribblah.
One more print to go PLUS our field trip into the wild Idaho landscape! Oh, and even a few shots of Rosie drawing petroglyphs! The Artist at work!
Sticks, Stones, and Paper Stew Blog 
A lovely piece, beautifully drawn 🙂
Thanks Rose!
Technical question: As far as I am getting this, you produce three separate plates (CYM). If you stack the plates on the lightbox can you get an idea of the final image? If so, can you go back and work more on, say, the yellow plate if you decide, for example, there is too much yellow in the fleece? Is there any ‘commit’ point before the actual printing stage?
I like the subtlety of the ghost second print.
Since this was a workshop, we worked on only one plate. I think there is something mysterious that occurs that way. Suicide method!
If you have 3 separate plates, were super talented and could figure out how to juggle 3 wet plates to see how everything lines up, then heck, why not! It all depends on what you want. Anything is possible. Why not experiment more!
We did run into problems with ink drying out. Yes, kind of surprising with oil based and plate oil too. It was probably due to low humidity of Idaho, less ink deposited on plates and warm light boxes. Somehow I don’t think you would experience that problem in England. Kind of doubtful in Oregon too.
BTW, we printed on dry paper.
🙂
Gale
My misunderstanding! Thank you for the clarification, Gale. You could have put the paper to soak in a sheep dip but I suppose that is more Australian rather than American! 🙂
🙂
Reblogged this on notes to the milkman and commented:
Gale was one of the beneficiaries of Rosie Scribblah’s trip to Boise. This shows some of her work, with an explanation of how to do it yourself at home!