FEATURE

Monotype

Monotype is a way of making a unique print that cannot be repeated. Using methods from painting and drawing, ink is applied to a surface, and marks can be added or taken away from the surface.

TECHNIQUE

Monotype

Monotype is a way of making a unique print that cannot be repeated. Using methods from painting and drawing, ink is applied to a surface, and marks can be added or taken away from the surface.

The passing of the inked plate through the press with dampened paper creates a kind of magic – a transformation of ink, colour and mark that cannot be created any other way.

Monotype is used more and more in its own right. Unlike more traditional printmaking methods only one print is made each time, however it is possible to build sequences of images with a relationship to each other and to allow one print to lead into the next. It is a brilliant medium for bringing printmaking together with drawing and painting, it can be fast and instinctive or planned and exact. It gives artists a unique exploratory tool for experimentation and development of contemporary ideas.

Monotype is attractive to artists as it is a low-impact method of printing, possible without the use of chemicals or expensive materials, and recycled materials can be easily incorporated into the process.

More printmaking techniques

Aquatint

Fine resin dust is applied to the surface of the etching plate, then melted from underneath to melt and harden the dots of resin. When immersed in acid the plate ‘bites’ between the aquatint resin dots, creating a distribution of tiny holes on the plate which print as a tone.

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Carborundum

Abrasive carborundum grit (silicon carbide) is mixed with acrylic medium or glue and painted onto a flat surface, such as plastic or metal.

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Etching

Etching was originally invented as a method for adding decoration to armour during the Middle Ages. Artists began to use metal plates for printing in the 15th century, when Albrecht Durer made work on iron plates. Later artists such as Andrea Mantegna in Italy and Rembrandt in Holland went on to make etchings on copper.

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Following a previous career as a forensic psychiatrist, James Anderson’s colourful carborundum and layered woodcuts convey the emotion of inner worlds. We discuss abstraction, inspiration and the hard work of practice with him.

Artist:
James Anderson

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Daydreaming through decoration

“I felt like I was in multiple spaces at the same time – the studio, my source material, my paintings – and I really lost myself in the process of making. I had this epiphany that if I inhabited my paintings long enough then the experience of looking at them would contain the dysphoria I felt, because that’s how art works, it’s a sort of a mirror.”

Artist:
Eleanor Watson

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Incredibly dark and incredibly light

“When I’m sitting in a ballet rehearsal I don’t have access to a table or any printing things so I have to make the monoprints from sketches when I get home. There’s a lot of bodies, there’s a lot of faces, a lot of movement.”

Artist:
Helen Breach

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