Wood Lithography (Mokulito) Printmaking – Anacapa Island Arch

This is a post from Belinda Del Pesco’s Art Blog Belinda Del Pesco.

Wood Lithography (Mokulito) Printmaking – Anacapa Island Arch

Experimenting with Wood Lithography (Mokulito) Printmaking continues in my studio. I really appreciate all the feedback and encouragement you sent about my deep dive into mokulito after the previous post. (Pretend I’m handing you a fresh-baked cookie and a cup of tea.)

This mokulito print was a test of watercolors as a background, followed by traditional oil-based printmaking ink for the island details printed on top of the watercolors. Then I added monotype. Each print was quite different, and I definitely had a few tossers.

This printmaking project concluded with an edition of five mokulito landscape prints of the sea arch at Anacapa Island, off the coast of California. They are listed for sale in my Etsy Shop over here.

Pushing for More in Printmaking

I like the way the layered mokulito watercolor and oil-based ink prints turned out, but I wanted a little more color-tangling in the lower section of the composition.

As in the last mokulito still life print of roses, I turned to monotype for added interest near the closest point of the water’s surface.

Adding Monotype to Mokulito Prints

Lay your beveled (how to bevel plexiglass), clear plate on top of your mokulito print, face down. Since you can see through it, simply draw shapes with a china marker on the verso of the plexi to mark areas that crave more dynamic mark-making or color.

After you’ve marked the shapes where you want to enhance color or texture on your mokulito print, flip your plexiglass ”map” face up, so the china marker is laying on your work surface. Now, you can brush or roll ink in the areas you’ve outlined. Feel free to scrape into the ink for added texture.

After you’ve added more ink and color, flip your plexiglass monotype plate one more time, so it’s ink-side down, and hover over your mokulito print till you’re color passages are aligned with their new destinations on the print.

Take a pause here, before you lower the ink to make contact with the print, to see if your additional colors or marks work on your design. Squint. (Squint a lot.) You can see the colors through the plexiglass, while hovering over your existing print as a preview of how it will transfer.

If it looks good, lay the inky side of the plexiglass on top of your mokulito print, and keep them sandwiched, so there’s no wiggling or movement between the print and the plate.

Either run that paper to plexi sandwich through your press, or flip it over and rub the back of the paper with a baren or spoon.

More Wood Lithography Experiments

After taking copious notes on the treasures I learned in this mokulito print process (the watercolor layer was a revelation), I’m working on the next image. It’s a still life of a cat in a loaf position next to a vase of flowers.

Stay tuned and I’ll post it here as soon as there’s something to show or say about it.

If you’ve discovered any great mokulito printmaking resources on the web, please share them in the comments. I listed a few in the previous post, and I’m glad so many of you found them helpful.

Thanks for stopping in, and I’ll see you in the next post!

Belinda

P.S. I found another artist doing experiments with mokulito prints on instagram. Have a look at Tadashi Kobayashi’s lovely wood litho prints.

Art Quote

The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process, is its own reward.

Amelia Earhart

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