I've completed my second day at the East Anglian Artists' group Artworks spring exhibition (the final day) - this time as the artist demonstrator. The first part of the morning was very quiet (only the very keen visit a gallery at eleven o'clock on a sunday), so I took this moment of calm to record my modest set-up in the corner of the gallery...
A non-portrait of the artist at work...I was doing a little monoprinting (aka monotyping, both terms seemingly interchangeable these days), which is as much painting as it is printmaking. I decided to downsize my art materials for this event and only took the paint colours that I have in small tubes, the ones that I find deep within the bargain buckets of art stores - hence a very limited palette - two browns, a green, blue, yellow ochre and a greeny-browny-grey...
Below are some of the monoprints at various stages of printing... the process is very simple and very adaptable - roll, paint, wipe, smear, scratch, scrape, inscribe... and then press the paper onto the inked surface (in this case, glass); you can also use surface pressure (a pencil for example) on the back of the paper to create interesting lines, marks and textures... repeat the process as necessary...here, I have used acrylic paints because of the reduced scale set-up, but oil-based inks are extensively used...
some monoprints pegged up to dry...
The afternoon was much busier and more engaging. I met and chatted to quite a lot of people, including someone who plans to bid on my work in the Art Auction next week... When I arrived back, I pinned up twenty beginnings of something new, and perhaps unsurprisingly a green theme emerged... not sure whether to tear these down into smaller works, before progressing further with the variations on green...
Here are some close-ups, showing some surface textures...
Somebody asked me how many layers I might add before they are deemed to be finished - it's usually more than ten but probably less than thirty - but I am not counting... and inbetween there will be some surface erasures...
Should I speculate publicly at this stage what I might do next with these works on paper? I contemplate (or rather procrastinate upon) doing certain things, but then don't pursue them, then later I will discover (through another) that another artist has done something similar... meaning it's time to think again...
This time, it's a Jazz Green thing...