Monoprinting…

“Abstract art is a product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered.”

– Al Kapp

Last weekend I went to Mendocino, CA for a 2 day workshop in monoprinting. It was a new and exhilarating experience for me and I found that I took to the medium happily. It satisfies my desires to create textures and shapes and there is a lot of discovery and unexpected results to be had. One thing I like about this type of monoprinting is that it forces you into non-representational spaces. With the tools used, it is difficult to make a picture of something – at best, you are forced into some level of abstraction. This is the area I want to be in anyway, so it’s a natural fit

We ended with color work, an example of which you see above, but we started with just black ink on white paper. I was amazed at how much complexity and depth could be achieved with one color:

This one was an attempt at a sort of abstract landscape.

Then we were allowed to add one color:

One of my instructors commented that my work looked “sooty” – huh? I think she was projecting her own inner qualms about the surrounding fires in Mendocino County (which really didn’t impact the town itself much at all). Sooty, though – sounds like something you’d hear at a high end wine tasting event – “that one has a sooty aftertaste, don’t you think?”. I hope my artwork does linger on the palate for a while…

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