Friday 22 February 2013

Monotypes/5

Colour !!!

Colour made its appearance today.
We had some earth colour available to work with today, ochre, burnt sienna, black, raw umber, and later on some blue.

I worked with positive technique but I now learned to combine some inking of the plate with the roller that I can use as a light background and unifying layer as I did in this three colour print



Also, coloured inks have their own personality one needs to learn, just as oils. Umber is weak and dries fast, the ochre was very difficult to manage as it had a tendency to splodge. I guess that one slowly learns and reins in their behaviour. I charged on for the first print with ochre and black but hit a brick wall: I intended to use black as my cool and ochre as my warm but it didn't quite work out: of course, there was no white to mix the black with !


Adding colour was indeed very complicated as inks are different in use both from watercolours and oils. Yes of course they can be mixed but it's very difficult to predict the intensity of the tone, so one is never sure how dark the area you are paintig will turn out in the print.

I am left in doubt on whether colour adds something to this method of work, and if the same prints would have looked better in monochrome, but that's the whle point of a ten weeks course, to learn about all the tecniques so that one can choose. 
I have to add that the input of the tutors on matters of composition, luminosity, mark making and many other aspects is invaluable, really a course worth attending ! 

Three prints from the same plate reworked in between pulls:

                           














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