Not Camera Shy 6.6 x 5.5 Watercolor Monotype Portrait
Available on Etsy.
I was talking with an incredible artist friend of mine – Priscilla Treacy – about supports for monotypes, and she suggested frosted mylar – also known as Drafting Film – as a printmaking plate. Slide a piece of matboard underneath the Mylar while it’s on the press bed to raise it up a little higher, if you have the benefit of a press.
(I’m glad to be a new member of that Club, but more on that later.)
I remembered that I had some mylar for colored pencil drawing, so I pulled a piece out and did a little experiment with Caran D’Ache water soluble crayons and Akua Kolor printmaking inks.
When I pulled the watercolor monotype portrait – I understood why Priscilla suggested coating the mylar first with Gum Arabic as a release agent.
I will do that on the next mylar monotype, since so much of the pigment stayed on the plate (right side of the image above).
I had to use Dawn dish soap and a scrubber to get the dried pigments off the mylar, but this could be a result of the Flying-by-the-Seat-of-my-Pants-Chemistry I’m dancing with, by mixing Akua Inks and Caran D’Ache crayons.
To make up for the left-behind pigments, I added watercolor to the monotype to increase the contrast in a few areas, but the watery, painterly, loose patterns in the print are very appealing to me, and I’ll be doing more of them this week.
Art Quote
One evening, Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899) was dining with me and some friends. Among the latter was a young lady recently married, who related to us an account of the furnishing of her house. All the rooms were finished except the dining room; for this last, her husband could not, for the moment, give her the money, and she was compelled to hold her little receptions in her sleeping room. After dinner, Rosa asked me for a large sheet of drawing paper, and while we were talking and she herself smoking a cigarette, she sketched a delightful hunting scene, which she signed with her full name. Then, under cover of a general conversation on music, as tea was being served, she approached the young wife and said to her: “Take this picture to (Benjamin) Todesco, on your return to Paris, and he will give you at least fifteen hundred francs for it. Then, you will be able to furnish your drawing room.”
~French Landscape painter, Joseph Verdier writing about his friend, the painter Rosa Bonheur
I love the multicolor background. I love the portrait. She is very real and lively. Beautiful work.
your work is wonderful. Great color and detailed looseness. I’ve never seen Mono type portraits.
Love this Belinda, wonderful and I love your detailed descriptions of process.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxBarbara
i just like the first, her smile is so cute!