Monoprint Test Run

A while ago someone donated a printing press to Mom's school for the art program.  She's kept it in the back room and we've slowly gathered all the missing pieces and gotten it ready for use.  Last Friday was that day.

I stopped by Home Depot to pick up some sheets of plexiglass in different sizes, grabbed some coffee from work, and headed over.  It was really just a day to test it out and make sure everything worked.  I picked a few colors from Mom's block printing supplies and started painting away.

I did a quick, outer space color splash, flipped it over on the paper and ran it through.

And voilà, it worked!  The only problem was that the ink dried too quickly so not much of it transferred to the paper.  For the second print, we spritzed water onto the plexi, which definitely helped, but gave it a weird, bubbly, almost watercolor-like texture.  And for the final print, I just added a bit of color really quickly over the top so it was still fairly wet.

Not a bad series for the first run-through!  After I left I went over to Artmart and got some ink retardant which will hopefully make it last long enough to transfer to the paper.  Stay tuned for test round two!

(photos by r.hunt, and e.hunt)