From Paddock to Mountain - Artist in Residence - Part 5

For two weeks I'm artist in residence at the Nancy Fairfax AIR Studio at the Tweed Regional Gallery in Northern New South Wales (Australia).

In my last post I was monoprinting mandalas with leaves then overprinting with a portrait of a scrub turkey using a polyester lithographic plate.

Over the past couple of days, I've been repeating the same sequences, but this time using a plate featuring my drawing of a magpie carolling (singing).

When magpies sing, they tilt their heads back to warble a beautiful melodious song, a long stream of musical notes like a flute, flowing up and down and around.  Check out this link to some audio recordings HERE.

I wanted to capture the joy of a singing magpie in my prints, so I used a pen drawing photocopied onto a pronto polyester plate.  I've used magpie imagery in my work before, but only as monoprint stencils.  Using a drawing on a litho plate gives me the opportunity to inject more personality and life into my image.

The downside is that I'm not a fan of editioning - printing the same print over and over is not very exciting.  I sometimes use too much ink or not enough ink.  And there is a high risk of ruining a successful monoprint when I print my litho plate over the top of it.

But I love my printing, and its always my happy place even if I only get one or two successful prints after a hard day's work.   All those 'not so good' prints make the successful ones even more satisfying and valuable.

Printing the litho plate over top of the monoprint.
The plate is transparent so its easy registration,
I'm using scraps of paper to keep the original paper clean.

This one has too much ink,so the Magpie has lost the detail
around his eye etc.
I'll wait until it dries and try a white Posca pen on it,

Not enough ink on the Magpie.
I can draw into the image with a black marker when it dries,
an easy fix,

This one is perfect, just the right amount of ink,

This is a monoprint that went badly wrong.  I put the magpie
mask/stencil on the wrong side.
That 'reversing of the image' printmaking rule caught me out
this time.  Arggghhh......

And this is where I fixed it.
Plan B - I printed the magpie litho onto a blank
piece of paper, then used that print to print onto'
my monoprint.
The magpie may need a little touch up with a marker pen when
its dry, but overall its a good outcome.
Never give up!  There's always a workaround.

Magpies in my garden.....and in my monoprints

Its always a good thing to challenge oneself.

So, keeping that in mind, last week I decided to create a monochromatic print using multiple plates, keeping the composition simple and minimalistic.  My usual technique is lots of colour on one plate with tons of mark making.   So how did I go?

My theme was one of my favourite - magpies. This time I wanted to tell the story of a magpie hunting for grubs on my back lawn.

The print that I completed consisted of 4 plates - 3 monoprint and 1 drypoint.  I ended up with a series of 2 successful prints and 6 failed prints.  I had many failures due to issues with accurate registration, which detracted from the pleasure of the process but a great learning opportunity as well. The plates moved as I lowered the paper on top, particularly the feather as it wasn't flat.

My plates were:
- Drypoint of a grub
- Monoprinted Magpie stencil
- Ghost monoprint of string (to represent the Magpie's song OR it could be the path of the grub under the ground)
- Monoprint of a feather

Would I do it again?  Hmmmmmm.....   maybe I'll try it where the plates are odd sizes and don't have to line up.   :-)

Making the drypoint plate using acrylic sheet and etching tool

Printing the 4 plates.  The registration sheet is below
the plastic liner on the bed press.

Revealing the print.

Revealing another print.

One of the final prints "Magpie in My Garden".
Can you see the story?