Monotype: Purple Barn at Agua Dulce Vineyards

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The reference photo for this monotype was snapped on a plein air excursion about six years ago. Agua Dulce Winery painted one of their barns a lovely shade of purple. It’s almost the same hue as the mountains surrounding the area, just north of Los Angeles (see the photo below). 

After going through the press – pulling the monotype.

When I pulled the print, I discovered that much of the detail scraped and wiped into the ink was blurred & merged under the pressure of the press. (This is common, and can be the result of viscosity of the ink, the sizing and/or moisture of the paper, the plate thickness, and whether it was really clean before the ink was rolled on, the pressure setting on the press, etc. It’s also a lesson to the printmaker: controlling the myriad variables in printmaking takes years of dedication and practice. It’s full of surprises.) When this happens, I store my monotypes in a cupboard for further attention with other media. I have a lovely stash of these surprise prints, and all of them are – in effect – under-paintings, waiting to become something else.

What do you do with prints and paintings that didn’t turn out the way you imagined them?

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Art Quote

I’ve been for several weeks completely lost in Abbott Thayer. Lost & swallowed up. He is a most extraordinary creature. Thayer has recently painted one of the sweetest heads that I ever saw anywhere. A most astonishing piece of work. I don’t know anyone who could make it so well. I mean way up among the swell French painters. I suppose they could do it as well, but they could not put the Thayer in it, could they? 

~Dennis Miller Bunker after a visit with Thayer in 1886

2012-08-24 17:07:40

Source: http://belindadelpesco.blogspot.com/2012/08/monotype-purple-barn-at-agua-dulce.html