Part 1: Project 2 - Positive and Negative Masked Monoprints

For this task I researched Matisse' 'Blue Nudes' ( see Research page) and thought about what kinds of objects would be good for this project. I'm really into houseplants right now and they all have really interesting shapes, so I thought that these would make good objects to focus on, especially as I had used plants in my first project, so this linked nicely with those prints.

I chose five different plants that I have around my home that had interesting shapes that could easily be translated to a simple line form.

Monstera

Trailing Plant

Sansevieria

Succulent

Pachyphytum

Taking each plant one at a time I practiced drawing them with one continuous line, doing several attempts of each one. At first I really struggled and found it hard to get the image how I wanted. I soon realised the trailing plant was going to be too difficult to capture properly for me at this time so removed that one and focused on the other four.

I attempted each plant single line drawing 3 - 4 times and soon started to get the hang of simplifying the image. Some were easier to draw than others, like the succulents because of their more rounded, smaller leaves were easier to capture whereas the others that has more stems, were harder.

Monstera:

Attempt 1:

I chose this one as the most successful of the four.

Attempt 2

Attempt 3

Attempt 4

Sansevieria:

Attempt 1

Attempt 2

Attempt 3

I chose this one as the most successful of the four.

Attempt 4

Pachyphytum:

Attempt 1

I chose this as the most successful of the three.

Attempt 2

Attempt 3

Succulent:

Attempt 1

Attempt 2

Attempt 3

I chose this as the most successful out of the three.

After choosing my most successful images from each design I then started practising cutting them out on coloured paper. I used carbon paper with my original drawings to mark out the lines onto coloured card which would become my master template.
I made some mistakes along the way but after several attempts I finally had four master mask templates I was very pleased with.

Negative Masks:

Positive Masks:

Once my master templates were made I began creating the masks, I made several of each on regular thin printer paper before getting ready to print.

I made a lot of different prints from these masks, trying to get the consistency of the ink right, trying different colours and taking it in turns to print the positive mask first, and then the negative mask first.

Failed and ghost prints.

Successful positive mask monoprints

**Updated Photos:

Fairly successful positive mask monoprints with a few imperfections.

Successful negative mask monoprints

**Updated Photos:

I also made some ghost prints of some of them, using up the left over ink.

Ghost prints of both positive and negative masks.

Reflection:

I found this process quite difficult at times, getting the ink consistent and positioning the paper in the right place. I enjoyed changing up the colours and using the different masks for the different plants.

The plants I chose worked really well for this task and came out nice and clear. I was really pleased with the overall look of my prints, I just need to practice getting a good overall print quality.

Both positive and negative images worked well on their own, especially with different colours.