Texture

Here are a few of my early texture experiments. I found it hard to make much impression in the ink.

This was a piece of heavy mesh and lines drawn with a comb.

This was lego, toy fishes and a plastic sieve.

I tried a thinner layer of ink to try and get a better impression, it came out a bit patchy, this was broderie anglais fabric.

For this print I used a cotton doily but this was disappointingly fuzzy.

The next few experiments are made on a gelli plate.

I used yellow blue and green acrylic paint applied directly to the plate and rolled together to create a blended variation of colour. I made the texture with a plastic lid and a shell rolled in the ink. The results were much more striking than with a traditional plate.

I added another colour without cleaning the plate giving a really interesting surface. I pressed leaves into the ink. This is a bit too busy but interesting to see how the bottom layer shows through when you take the print.

For this print I kept the red bottom layer and added green over the top. I used leaves again but this time they exposed the red ink rather than leaving a white area.

It is very different creating monoprints this way. It is harder to control. I think this is as much to do with the acrylic paint, which is wetter than printing inks, as it is the gelli plate. I also found that when I tried to use multiple layers the paper began to wrinkle as it was not heavy enough for the paint. This needs different combinations of paint and paper which will require some practice.