Hi everybody! Can you see me waving? It's been about a month since we all started sheltering in place, and I had to cancel the Paper Weaving Play-Shop. We hoped it might be possible to re-schedule for April, but obviously that isn't going to happen. So, we'll just have to keep being creative in our own ways at home. (and even if you haven't been making art, I bet you've been being creative; figuring how to use up food in the pantry, finding new ways to stay in touch with family and friends, and so on!)
I've been thinking about whether I wanted to venture into teaching online, and that may eventually happen, but in the mean time, I've been documenting some of my own artsy experiments, especially ones that don't require specialized materials or expertise, so I could use them as simple tutorials, to encourage you in your own creative exploits. Let me know what you think about getting a weekly-or-so art suggestion or tutorial in your inbox. If lots of people aren't interested, I'll make it a separate mailing list!
In the mean time, here is one thing I did last week that you might like to try, either by yourself or with a resident kid. Feel free to forward this email to someone you think might enjoy it! Forward to a friend
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Tutorial - low-tech monoprinting
Some of you have done multi-layer mono-printing with me in a Play-Shop, where we did it with a silicone printing plate, and spread the paint with a brayer. This is the little-sister version of that technique, using things you probably have at home.
Materials:
cereal or cracker box, or other light-weight cardboard
"waxed" paper liner (really plastic these days) from the box.
some kind of tape; masking or scotch tape, duct tape in a pinch
acrylic paint - any kind will do. (tempera paint could work, watercolor is very different, but can be interesting, haven't tried food coloring, but it might work!)
a paint brush, preferable flat not round, but use what you have!
some things to make marks with - q-tips, scrunched up plastic wrap, rubber stamps, bubble wrap, your fingers...)
paper to print on. I just use plain old printer paper, but you could also print over black and white junk mail, pages from an old book, a brown paper bag...
newspaper or plastic to cover your surface, unless you have one it's okay to make a mess on.
Here's my process. Feel free to invent your own variations!
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On the left are the materials for making my plate. On the right, I've cut apart the box and used the front and back to make two pieces about 8″x10″, then glued them face to face with a glue stick. (this is just because it was pretty thin cardboard. One layer would probably be fine.)
Then I cut all the seams off the liner bag, flattened it out, and taped it around the board.
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Here I’m spreading a thin layer of craft paint over the whole plastic-covered board. I watered down the paint a little with water; if the paint is too thick (and a lot of mine is quite old,) it dries out before you can make a print. Too much water, and it might bead up on the plastic surface. But if that happens, don't freak out! It can make for very interesting effects in your prints!
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The next thing to do is make some sort of marks in the paint; quick, while it’s still wet! This is an old plastic card with notches cut in one end. (sorry picture is blurry; it’s hard to do something and take a picture at the same time!)
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To pull a print, put a sheet of paper face down on the plate, and rub over the whole thing with the palm of your hand, then lift the paper off. Voila! Now you have the first layer of a print. Or maybe you really love it just like it is, and don't make any more layers on this one; your call!
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Now, spread another layer of paint on your plate, and do it again! Here, I’m making pattern with a Q-tip. The left-over bit of the previous color has dried on the plate by the time I get the next color out. Some of it might come up with this print, but that just makes it more interesting! This could be printed on its own fresh sheet of paper, or it could be an additional layer over a previous print.
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I chose to print my blue swirls over the previous pink radiating lines. I could leave it like this, or make more layers.
I’m personally not fond of white spaces in my papers, so I'm likely to wait till this is completely dry and then paint over it with watercolor in some shade that coordinates. The watercolor will mostly not stick to the acrylic, but will tint all that white background.
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Here’s another favorite technique. On the left I have spread a layer of paint, then grabbed a piece of plastic (thin plastic bags or wrappers from things are perfect for this. This was the wrapping around a frame.) I crumple it up and tap it down onto the paint over and over, turning my hand between taps so I don't get a repeating pattern of the same marks. On the right you see how the print turned out; isn't that a beautiful texture?
It's good to let each page dry before you print over it again, so I'm usually working on several at the same time. You can keep making layers until you get something you like. I often unify my prints at the end by painting a thin layer of watercolor over the whole thing.
So, now what to do with all those crazy fun printed papers?
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I’ve been writing lots and lots of snail mail notes to people, especially friends and folks I know who might be feeling especially down or isolated while we’re all “sheltering in place” because of the CV19 pandemic. So I just cut up bits of my prints, sometimes draw something extra on them with a pen, and glue them to half a sheet of cardstock folded over to make a card. As you can see, I’ve been having fun drawing “stitching” lines.
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If you were interested enough to make it this far, I hope you'll try this at home! And please do think of folks who could use a cheerful note or phone call right now, and reach out to them!
Let me know if you're interested in more tutorials for making art at home!
Lots of love, Janet
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