Akua Prints

On Friday, Melanie repeatedly reminded us that she has been doing these prints for a long time and she was making decisions while demonstrating based on experience.  She told us that our prints may not be very great since we are just learning.  She emphasized that we were learning and playing with the inks to found out how they work and not to expect wonderful pieces.  Therefore, I went in Saturday with no expectations of getting anything usable.

Here is my total output for the day.


Based on the first print of the three color reduction, I was certainly living up to my non-expectations.  That layering process is a bit challenging for my brain. 

Then I moved on to the stencil technique which was what I was most excited about.  We were given the homework assignment to cut out our stencils, so we had them all ready.  Below is my first print.  I like it.

 

 It's easy to do many of these by taking the stencils off after printing them, flipping them over onto another plate (because they pick up some ink from the plate on the back side), doing ghost prints, layering new stencils, etc. etc.  You could go on forever.  I also used a dot stamp on the one above (they look like bubbles) and the bottom of a spool pressed into the ink which created the circles in the bottom left corner.

I did quite of few of these and pulled ghost prints as well.  Not all of them are great but it was fun to play.  I had also brought some fabric to try printing on.  I ironed freezer paper on the back to make it stiff and used it just like the paper.  The print below is on white fabric.  The lower corner is a little light.

What's so exciting about this is I can heat set this and then add stitching or more color if I want and finish it like my other fabric pieces.

I was rolling my colors on a separate plexi palette and Molly said I should print the palette.  So I did print it on fabric.  It is below.  With these piece, I could cut it up and sew it back together with some other fabrics.  Now, I'm really excited about the possibilities of this process with fabric.

The last picture I'm going to show you is a ghost print on paper that I took from the plate with the leftover ink from printing on a piece of fabric.  It is very pastel, but I really like how the colors blended in this one.  I think I can go back into it with some colored pencils or crayons and create just a little more contrast. 

There are so many things you can do with the print once it's printed. You can print over it again, go in with paint, pencils, ink, collage, etc.  Since they are monotypes, they are all one of a kind.  I had a lot of fun doing this workshop.