Nude w/ stockings

Nude w/stockings: 6 x 9 Encaustic Monotype
(Private Collection)

This print is an encaustic monotype printed on black Arches Cover paper with Caran d'Ache oil based crayons. This process is achieved by:
1) Placing a clean metal (zinc) plate on a hot plate and heating it to around 120-130 degrees. 2) Drawing the image on the plate with crayons (caran d'ache oil crayons - you can even use crayolas). The hot plate melts the crayons into pools of pigment. 3) With the image roughly laid out on the plate, removing pigment with Q-tips to define the image. 4) Transfering the image to the paper by placing it over the plate and rolling it firmly with a brayer. Presto!
The nature of a monotype is that it is a "one-off". They are more like paintings than prints in the traditional sense. Only one or two prints can be pulled from a plate before cleaning off the plate (thus losing the image) and starting over. They are not numbered because there is no edition.


I love this process. Its fast, loose and very painterly.

Happy Easter, Jesus!

Today's post in celebration of Easter is a linoleum print or 'lino-cut' (same as the Taurus print for you regular readers). The above print is printed on a newsprint colored paper with varying shades of brown ink. Below is a print from the same block printed on black paper with gold ink.


Don't eat too many chocolate bunnies! Happy Easter, everybody.

Dionysus, Poseidon?... Hermes!

If I had known I was going to print so many of these scultpures from the Getty, I would have have better documented their subject/title(s). This is either Dionysus or Poseidon. (UPDATE: my resourceful sources tell me this is actually a sculpture of Hermes, messenger to the gods. Thanks,B!) Maybe I should just call it Man with Big Squared-Off Beard, since that is what drew me to snap a picture of this piece.

This print is a monotype printed in black etching ink with the blue background tapped onto the plate and just a tiny bit of detail added with watercolor.



Above is the plate ready to be printed. Below is the print being pulled from the plate.

Constantine the Great

The Museum series continues with Roman Emperor Constantine the Great. Fun Facts: Constantine was the first Christian Roman Emperor (a turning point for the Christian Church). Constantinople was named after him and was the first Christian city in the world.

This print also continues my experimentation with applying color by tapping ink onto the plate. This go round I discovered you can't work the plate too long or your colored ink will start to dry to the plate. I worked the plate for about three hours and had all the highlights and shadows in copper patina greens and rust in browns and oranges, and unfortunately much of that detail stayed on the plate and did not transfer to the print. I think the print is still successful, but its not as opaque or detailed as I'd anticipated. But that's all part of printmaking; you never know exactly what you're going to get.



This is the copper plate with the residual ink still on it. Better than the print? You decide.