Watercolour monotypes

A first attempt at printing monotypes from watercolour painted on yupo. Years ago Rhonda Carpenter, incredibly kindly, sent me a sample of yupo to try, when I couldn't find it here in Johannesburg - I eventually found and bought a pack and am finally experimenting! I like the slippery quality of watercolours on this surface, and the clear bright tones you can get, but wanted to try monotypes, so sacrificed the original paintings on the left of each set. 

My first painting, of random objects on my studio windowsill, was very fast, loose and drippy - impatient to get a print made. I didn't dampen the watercolour paper enough to get a good print from the original, but like what was left behind on the yupo .

The second painting was more detailed and careful - starting to enjoy making compositions from these little objets! Quite unpredictable results in the print... the line I drew around the seedpod came out much darker than I'd planned. I'd wet the paper for longer but still didn't pick up as much paint as I'd hoped (the 'doctored' cellphone pic is deceptive!) 

The third attempt was more successful - soaked the watercolour paper for longer - and the print was almost darker in parts than the original.

If you want to try - paint your image onto clean grease-free yupo with watercolour. Make sure it has plenty of pigment to water ratio. While it's drying, soak some smooth watercolour paper - I used hot press 300 gsm - in water for about 10 minutes. Blot with a clean towel or paper towel to remove excess water and place over the image. Rub well all over the paper with the back of a spoon, or other smooth object (I used a pot of handcream with rounded edges), remove and hopefully there will be a monotype... I haven't perfected the process and probably won't without a proper press, but quite excited at the results!

 

Two years and running

Yesterday was this blog's second anniversary, and I was planning to put something bright and beautiful up to celebrate, but nothing's going quite right here at the moment. Besides infuriating tangles with officialdom and red tape (I'm feeling great sympathy for the chap who held up a Home Affairs office until they issued him with an ID document that he had been waiting for for ten years!) it's turned from cold, to cold and wet, stymieing my plans to sit in the garden and paint these determined daffodils that have raised their cheerful heads in spite of the weather.

So I took a photograph and decided to try out, at last, the sheet of yupo that Rhonda sent me. I set about on my usual way of wet watercolour with loose brushstrokes... whoa!... things didn't go the way I was expecting them to at all. It is a whole new ballgame, and my rushed, impatient manoeverings of paint on the slippery surface produced some horrible mud. I badly need to go to some of Sandy Maudlin's workshops, be sat down and told to relax, take it slowly, investigate and take advantage of the special qualities which yupo patently has. The image on the left was taken before I added darks to the petals to show their forms, which was such a disaster that I've cropped it to a small section that wasn't quite as awful as the rest - I don't want my blog-birthday post to be ugglesome now do I!?

Actually, this exercise has demonstrated clearly to me that I am rushing through far too many things, especially as far as painting goes, lately. The positives that have come from A Sketch in Time have been so many - the community I've met, the sharing and exchanging of ideas and a common passion, the incentive to go out and draw/paint/sketch instead of... not, the examining and discovery of what really interests me and what doesn't, but, although it's now living up to its name far more now - lots more sketches of the moment and fewer old works - it's all got a bit frantic. So if I have a resolution for the next year of A.S.I.T. it's to slow down, take time to get lost, and hopefully found again - you'll be seeing how it goes!

Some playtime

I have a little treasure, a present from a special blogfriend, that I've been waiting and waiting to play with after my work was done. Rhonda, of Watercolors and Words, when I wistfully wished I could try out some Yupo in her comments, kindly and generously went to the trouble of packing and sending me a piece so that I could decide whether I liked it enough to order a batch online! All the way from Kentucky! Isn't that amazing?
I said she had a heart of gold, and she replied, with her obvious bubbly nature, maybe that's why its been giving her a spot of bother lately - Rhonda I hope with all my heart that you return to the best of health quickly, you so deserve to, and Thank You!!!
I had trouble finding rubbing alcohol to clean it with (which I finally got yesterday, from a suspicious looking pharmacist - did he think I wanted to swig it?), but before that I just had to doodle on a small strip, fingerprints and all. I like the weird things that happen with the colours granulating and sitting on top of the surface, and the more intense colours that result from non-absorption - and the way you can lift it off easily if you want to, and move it around endlessly... I'm thinking up what to do on the big piece that's left - so fun.

I'm planning on going Sketching today, for the 23rd Worldwide Sketchcrawl, though for one reason and another I'm, so far, stuck in the house (but with my yupo :-) - I've registered with the site, but for some cookies/security/computer-innards reason I can't log in, but still, if I can I'll be getting out there.