Adventures in arting

[amberdreams]

There was a special subsidised arts programme celebrating our coastline taking place over the last year, and I managed to book myself on one of the workshops - monoprinting. Not that I had a clue what monoprinting was, but never mind. So today I drove over to Bawdsey for the day of arting.

The plan was to go out to Shingle Street (which is a site of special scientific interest that is rumoured to be the possible the site of a German landing in 1940). There we were supposed to do three quick warm up sketches, have 30 minutes drawing, then take all our references back to Bawdsey Village Hall to use as the basis for some printing. The only problem was, as soon as we arrived on the beach, the dark clouds that had been threatening decided it was time to let loose - yay! Rain, followed by hail, woopee. I hadn't realised everyone else had gone back to the cars to hide while muggins was sitting on a tuft of grass drawing a rusty thingy.

Here's the rusty thingy. This gel pen sketch looked great while it was getting rained and hailed on, not so great when it dried out.

So any way - here's one of my 3 minute sketches

And here's a sketch someone did of me doing a 3 minute sketch sitting in a shingle foxhole with my backpack on

And here are some of my monoprints


Including accidental mountains

What the beach actually looks like

And in conclusion - I won't be giving up the non existent day job to start a career in printing!

Comments

[ephermeralk.livejournal.com]

Looks awesome!

I hope you had fun <33

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

It was a kind of fun - the wet and cold kind... ;-)

[chomaisky.livejournal.com]

That's way better than the mono printing I did before!

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Really? I find that hard to believe! I got ridiculously mucky - ink everywhere LOL

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

That is so cool! I'm kind of curious how the mono-printing works, I wonder if it's like what we call "stencilling"? I love playing with different mediums and it's such fun to see the same image created in different ways (including the photo *grins*) Sounds like a great artsy day, too bad about the weather!

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Not stenciling - you ink up a tile or similar surface with a thin layer of printing ink, then lay your paper on it and draw onto the reverse of the paper. So you get the pressure lines from whatever you use to draw with (pencil, plastic fork, fingers, etc) - and you can remove some ink from the surface before you start too. Those 3 prints I've shown here were done scraping away ink from a tile before putting the paper on top and making the print.

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

So you work in reverse (mirror image)? I like the structures the tile print leaves behind.

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly! So if you are trying to draw a scene people would know you'd have to try drawing it in reverse (or maybe do a tracing then turn it over). It's a cool technique - I'd seen pics like this before but hadn't realised this was how they are done. http://www.lynberwick.com/images/105.jpg

[dizzojay.livejournal.com]

Good idea - looks like you had a productive day :)

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

It was, mostly producing rubbish but hey, we have to learn by making mistakes, don't we!

[roxymissrose.livejournal.com]

I *LOVE* your prints!!

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Aw thanks!

[sillie]

Sounds like you had a great day of arting. :D Shame about the weather though. The prints look so cool. :D

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

The weather was...interesting! I was still a bit soggy when I got home LOL

[fanspired]

I like :)) Especially the one of the rusty thingy.

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[becc-j.livejournal.com]

I love your sketch of the rusty thingy :) and the accidental mountains look great! Your monoprints look very cool - I have no idea what that is either - is it where you carve out the negative space of the image out of a material and then apply ink and then put that on paper? I did that in highschool...that was a while back.

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

That's not exactly what we were doing, though I think that is one method - monoprint is apparently any printing method that is a one off thing, so every print will be unique. The method we were using was to ink up a piece of acetate or a ceramic tile, then either scrape off ink from the surface before laying the paper down on it (which is what those 3 up there are), or to leave the ink intact, lay the paper on it then draw your picture onto back of the paper- so your print is the pressure of the lines your drawn in reverse, plus any pressure from fingers, hand where it rests, etc.

[becc-j.livejournal.com]

oh cool, thank you for explaining. Sounds like an interesting process and I really love your results.

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

I'd love to have a go at home and see what sorts of effects I could do but it is VERY messy - you need a reasonable amount of space, and some equipment I don't have. But it would be easy enough to set that all up so... I am tempted.

[milly-gal.livejournal.com]

That's extremely cool! What's also extra awesome is the drawing of you drawing, I love that!

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

he he I was tickled by that too - I was all like - ooh, proof I was there!

[milly-gal.livejournal.com]

*Grins* I'm assuming you didn't get to keep a copy of the picture, I'd have asked for a copy, lol.

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Nope, the photo will do me! :D

[ladywillin.livejournal.com]

Good old British weather making things a million times harder than they ought to be, but nevertheless, I think they look really good for a first attempt.

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[jj1564.livejournal.com]

I like your monoprint of "the rusty thingy"! What a shame the weather misbehaved, but I love the sketch of you with your hood up and backpack on, braving the weather!

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

That braving was before it started hailing and really raining and everyone else buggered off without telling me! LOL

[jj1564.livejournal.com]

But you were still braver than the rest, those fair-weather artists!!