Mono-typing at home!

February 28, 2010

So I have come across a new technique and I love it. The style came from my class of mono-printing and is called mono-type. It is a very simple printing process that gives you awesome results and is really easy to do. I thought, since I liked it so much, I would write out a little tutorial so others can try it! If you do end up doing it, please show me some of the things you came up with!

Mono-typing is a very painterly style of printing. It is also a print that is impossible to replicate.  You can either use a traditional press... which if you dont have access to one you can get for the low price of about 15,000 dollars :), or you can do the much cheaper hand printing. Here are the steps. 

1. Acquire the materials. You will need: 

-A flat sheet of plastic or metal that is the size of your print. This is what you paint on. 

-Get a piece of paper in the size of your print with enough room for a border, if you want one. The paper will have to be wet for printing so the best paper is either watercolor paper or special printing paper. You can still use drawing paper, but it will warm a little after drying. 

-What inks you get is a little flexible. One of the best kinds is a printing ink called akua. The are a little expensive, I only have a black and a 2 oz container of it cost me $8.70. The price is based on the color, since the minerals that make up the pigments are all different prices. The black is the cheapest and the 2 ounces goes a long way. You can also use oils. The main importance is you use an ink that doesn't dry easily. You want to have time to work on  the plastic/metal and still have it wet enough to make a good print.

-Have with you a variety of brushes, cut up cotton fabric for wiping, and any other thing you think you might want to paint with. Finding things with texture is fun to press into the paint. you can get a brayer, a little rubber roller, to administer the ink as well but its not necessary. 

-I suggest having some sort of ink thinner so painting comes a little easier. 

- A spray bottle with water in it. The finer is mists the better

-A pastry roller for printing.

-Spare paper/newsprint

2. Set out your station. You are going to want to have some newspaper under you because this is a messy process. Make sure to have a piece of scarp cardboard, plastic, etc for a pallet. 

3. Start Painting! Use the tools and ink to start moving the ink around your plastic. With press printing, you have to be modest with you ink since there is so much pressure being put on your paper and you don't want it to mush out when you put it though. With hand printing, you want to be pretty liberal. You still want to avoid globs of paint anywhere, but you should have your layers pretty thick so they show up. 

4. Preparing the paper and printing: When you are happy with your piece, take your paper and mist it with water. Having the paper wet help lift the ink off of the plastic.  If you have the higher quality printing or watercolor paper, you can completely submerge your paper in water. If you have drawing paper or something similar, you are going to need to go easy on the moisture, otherwise the paper will fall apart. After your paper is wet, take some spare or news print and wet it liberally. Lay the to the side.

Take the sheet you want the print to be on and lay it on a flat surface, like a table. Place your painted plastic, ink down, where you want it on your paper. carefully flip the duo so the paper is on top. Be careful not to move either piece or the ink will smudge. Take the roller and start applying pressure with it al around the paper. You will be able to feel where the plastic begins and ends. Go every direction. If an area gets dry, apply more water by spraying the roller and then rolling it across the area. 

5. Check your print by lifting up a corner of your paper. This is where personal judgement comes in. If the ink is dark enough on the paper your done, if you want it darker you can put it back down and apply more pressure and water. If after a while, the ink doesn't seem to be getting any darker, you can always repeat the process and re-print on the same paper. Re-printing is also used as an effect to create more depth to the art piece. 

6. Clean up or keep printing!

If you have any questions let me know. This is me first tutorial so I might have left some things out. The two prints I included i did yesterday and the day before. They are done with the black akua and then some left over oils I had. I did them in 2-3 layers (re-prints). Enjoy and get printing!