"Reveal and Conceal" (Mono Printing Demo)

Today's posting is yet another Mono Printing Demo to show another way of using mono printed rice papers and texture stamps. The rest of the week I will be posting actual pieces (with a quote) using mono printed papers.

Printing techniques of any kind eventually end up with an inclusion of the oldest form of printing....rubber stamps. There are a myriad of different kinds of stamps on the market, but I suggest extreme caution about how they are used and what kinds are included. For fine art pieces, cute little stamps with hearts, flowers, little birds, etc. are not in the same category as fine art. Please save them for your scrap booking projects. 

The kind which will serve you well are the kind with all over texture or patterns. The one I included in today's demo looks like gauze with erratic tiny lines crisscrossing in both directions.

However, the mono printing was done first by placing app. 1/2 tsp of printing ink on the plate (a sheet of glass) and brayering that out in all directions until it sounds "squishy". I then sprayed that ink with  water and brayered over that again to create an erratic "pooling" of the color. Place the rice paper down in this mixture and smooth over it with your hand (wearing latex gloves) Lift it off and leave it on wax paper to dry.

I speeded up my drying time with a hair dryer and then brayered out some more color. I pressed the stamp into the color and began printing. Many areas were printed one on top of the other until the value was as dark as I wanted and yet you can still see a vague image of the mono print. It is also obvious that I left one rectangular area free of the stamping. That gives you an area for text underneath that will be vaguely visible or the inclusion of hand lettering or other elements. 

After drying all of this, I sprayed it 2x with spray acrylic coating and dried in between. One spraying is not enough for this amount of paint. The next step was to adhere a page of text on an 8" x 10" flat gesso board. I then adhered the mono print on top of that and then an ornate "D" printed on silk tissue paper.

The entire piece was dried thoroughly and then sprayed again with spray acrylic coating. Just an FYI....you will get a few bubbles with large areas of mono printed papers after they are adhered. I've created lots of pieces with this paper and this is quite normal. Just let it dry for several days...spray again....and then brush on a varnish 2x....drying in between. It will probably have a few more bubbles until it dries thoroughly. Over time it becomes very hard and I've had no issues. And there you have it...just a few more things to think about.