Monoprinting is torturous fun. You paint in reverse, and inside out. And chine collé adds further complication. Trace monoprinting is the riskiest of all, either reducing hours of work to an irretrievable mess, or adding the mark that makes all the difference.
I absolutely love monoprinting!
By definition, a “monoprint” is one of a kind, but has repeatable elements, like etchings, relief plates (linocut, collagraph, stamps), or textures I scrounge from packing materials or nature. A “monotype” is something that is entirely original, with no repeatable elements. I do both, yet I particularly enjoy incorporating original carved or found textures in my work and seldom combine them the same way twice.
The image shown above is a close-up of “Improv with Gold“, a banner piece on Masa paper. Because it was created using stencils, relief plates and stamps, it’s technically a monoprint. I used brayers to apply the ink, and embellished with trace monoprinting for the asemic writing (a fancy word meaning words with no meaning).
It’s always a journey of surprise and discovery to see how these disconnected marks work together on a single piece of paper.
