Repairing Monotype Prints with Colored Pencil

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

Repairing Monotype Prints with Colored Pencil

If you’ve visited before – you know my printmaking experiments with monotype prints often fall flat (like this one). But I usually bring the Uh Oh Squad of Other Media in to save the day.

Repairing Monotype Prints with colored pencil is one of my favorite fix-it methods. I hope this post inspires you to pull a few of your less than loved monotype prints out of the junk drawer for a little upcycling with other media.

The Right Paper for Hand Transfer

I already know this, but do I listen to my self? Nope. Hand transferring a monotype print works so much better with smooth, less toothy and textured printmaking paper. Arches 88 is one of my smooth surfaced favorites for spoon or baren transfers of monotypes – with one important caveat.

There is no sizing in Arches 88, so adding wet media will bleed past where you’ve applied it. So, no watercolors on top of your prints. BUT, it handles printmaking inks and hand transfers beautifully, and its bright white, sturdy surface is a luxurious printmaking paper.

Paper and Pigment Matchmaking

If you’re feeling uninspired, but you still want to play with art supplies, you can dive into a test of your printmaking papers and transferrable drawing pigments for monotype prints.

Cut strips of all your printmaking papers, label their brand and weight, and tape them to a glass or acrylic/plexiglass sheet. Use the tape as a hinge to flip the papers over (see above) and lay some of your pigments down, with masking tape labels. Flip the papers back over all your pigments, lay a sheet of newsprint down, and press evenly with your preferred spoon or baren.

Test Your Supplies – Take Notes

You can do this hand transfer pigment to all sorts of papers test three times – so you get results with dry paper and dry pigments, then again with soaked and blotted paper on dry pigments, and the third time with dry paper and atomized/misted pigments. See which combinations work the best.

Take some notes and photos with your phone, and keep the strips of paper taped into a printmaking notebook to remind yourself about the best matchmaking between paper and pigment for future printmaking sessions.

Printmaking Paper Love

I used Arnhem1618 paper (which I love) for this multicolored monotype print. If I’d transferred the print on a press, the pigment coverage would have been much smoother. It’s not the paper’s fault that I didn’t match the paper to the transfer process.

I wish more beginner printmakers would pay closer attention to the matchmaking required in printmaking. The right paper for the right ink for the right transfer process. You’re probably thinking – “Hey, Waitaminute! You’re mis-matching paper to your transfer process, and advocating that other printmakers approach this with more thought? What the helk?” [NOTE: The word HELK is a combination of Hell and Heck, but less edgy.]

Matching the best of those three starting details (paper, ink, transfer process) will avoid disappointments, and keep a beginner artist’s heart in that joyful, success-fueled momentum when things work well. Did I do that on this print? No, I did not.

I make mistakes on matching the right paper to the print process when I’m too excited to stop, and I forget to pay attention to the details. Or, I’m out of the right paper, and I’m winging it. I confess that impatience and excitement to keep going win over good sense in my studio.

And that’s when you bring in the Medic of Monotype Repair – Colored Pencils.

Colored Pencils to the Rescue

I’ve had no trouble using colored pencils to repair my failed monotype prints. (I’ll put a list of posts on that below.) The inks I prefer (Akua, Daniel Smith, Cranfield, Graphic Chemical and Hawthorne) have all taken the colored pencil pigment on top of the ink quite well.

Especially when the print challenge was a result of toothy paper and mottled, sparse ink. That visible paper speckle is prime texture for colored pencil pigments to grab onto.

As for colored pencils, I have a mix of brands that I’m happy with: Prismacolor, Schpirerr Farben (hard to find these days), Caran D’Ache and Amazon Basics are mixed willy nilly in my pencil holder (I use this one).

Artists Wear Many Hats

If you have a cupboard of monotype prints that fell short of the runway, I hope you’ll put your experimenter’s hat on, and apply some colored pencil to those prints. If you’ve already deemed them unloveable, what have you got to lose?

Everyone loves a compelling before and after. Renovations of kitchens, back yards, vintage campers and thrift store upcycles are very popular on social media right now. Engaging your creative noggin to transform old and busted into new and amazing is super satisfying.

Fixing things is also rooted in sustainability, reducing waste, and stick-to-it-ness. We are not quitters, right? So what if the print didn’t come out all nicey-nice and swoonish lovely. Harumph! Eye rolling with hands on hips! We will persevere and Make It So! Go forth and Conquer.

Thanks for stopping by and I’ll see you in the next post -

Belinda

P.S. A perfect example of upcycling from paper artist Marina using Amazon Boxes to create beautiful bird mobiles.

Monotype Print Repairs

In this print of a young girl and her dog, I used colored pencil to refine some of the details on the monotype print. The post includes a list of supplies with links and a few more posts on the subject.

I pulled a monotype print of a portrait of a girl on paper that was exposed to air for a long time, which compromised the sizing. If you’re new to the affects of sizing on art paper meant to hold moist pigment, this is an informative read.

Here is a monotype ghost print of a bathroom interior still life with flowers, and the values were so washed out, it was a perfect starting point for colored pencil repairs.

This is another perfect example of my jumping the shark and using the wrong mix of paper, ink and transfer methods. I wag my finger at myself. But alas, the Medic of Monotype Prints is colored pencils.

Art Quote

Unless I’m crazy, right now a still small voice is piping up, telling you – as it has ten thousand times – the calling that is yours and yours alone. You know it. No one has to tell you. And unless I’m crazy, you’re no closer to taking action on it than you were yesterday or will be tomorrow.

Steven Pressfield

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