AEDM November 3rd

I have a confession to make.

I don't like messy art.

No, that's not true.

I HATE messy art.

Still, when I was lying in bed last night trying to figure out what I wanted to do today for Art Every Day Month, I remembered I had the stuff to make monoprints.

We did them in art school. As you may have guessed by the name, unlike most prints, which are designed to be made in some kind of quantity, you only make one of these. What you do is ink up a sheet of glass with your ink and a roller, then put the paper (rice paper works well) face down on top. Then you draw on the back with a pencil or whatever, or, you can simply trace with a finger or fingernail. You can get some unbelievably black blacks with this, and they can be quite yummy.

So I set it all up, having first set the portable heater in the room to Quite Toasty; and sure enough, the cats could smell it and were soon scratching at the door to come in. They then promptly curled up and went to sleep in the lovely warm room, and I had my models. I am so clever.

I also did some sketches of hands and some drawings after some photos of trees I had.

I took a photo of the ones I liked since they aren't exactly scan-in-able all wet and sticky like that.



They are kind of fun, I guess, though not really my thing, like I said. And I got all paranoid about washing up afterwards, since the ink was oil-based. My studio room is also my sewing room, and black smudgy ink + nice clean cloth is not a happy thing. So, hmmm. Usually I do water-based paintings that have far less potential to get everywhere, but I've been wanting to do some oil painting, too. I don't know if it's going to be able to work in that room after all.