Printmaking centre

In the printmaking centre, you will learn the joy of printmaking -- a freeing artform that often gives us unexpected results!

There are a few things you may want to explore:

Monoprints are unique, singular artworks created by painting on an acrylic plate, and transferring that painting to a piece of paper. There are many ways to work on monoprints, and you can work on it with acrylic paint as well as ink. Below, an example of creating monoprint paintings using a press.

1. Monoprint

Depending on the paper you are using for your monotype, you may need to dampen the paper.

Thicker paper work best if dampened first; if you are doing tryout runs with regular printing paper, however, you may not need to dampen at all.

This has to be done quickly, in and out of a bin; or, you can simply spritz it with one of the water spray bottles and leave it to absorb.

Experimentation will be very helpful, and you will get a few duds before getting the hang of it... but once you do, you will fall in love.

2. Monotype

While a monoprint is a unique piece of art, a monotype is achieved by working on a series of closely related artworks.

You can, for instance, use one of our foam plates and a blunt object such as the back of a paintbrush, to create a low relief of a drawing. When you ink the plate, everything will pass to the paper, except for what you have drawn.

You can use the plate several times, and add different touches to each one -- blocking areas, changing colour, mixing things.

You can explore printmaking in many different ways! It is completely up to you. But there are some things that I will be looking for in your monoprint.

1. Is your monoprint paper clean? Were you able to keep the white areas white and neat?

2. Did you remember to leave a white border?

3. Is your name and the number of your print (if applicable) on the bottom right corner?

If you are aware of the presentation of your artwork,

then you will already be halfway there.