Sunday, April 4, 2010

Serendipitous Monoprints with French Dyes on Paper and Silk

I have been so busy working on this custom order that I haven’t had much time to “play” in the studio and all work and no play makes this artist surly! Yesterday I noticed that some dye I had spilled on the counter had dried in the most delightful design so I dropped the custom order like a hot potato and created some monoprints using the countertop as my plate and the dye as my medium. I printed the dye onto wet paper and wet silk and I got a few lovely prints which I am delighted with.

It was a wonderful and much needed break because I had been running into some technical problems with the order and had been doing steaming tests for days trying to solve the problem. The stress was really getting to me and I was so frustrated that I really needed a break. When I turned and saw the lovely dye pattern on the counter it filled me with such delight that I had to stop and play with it and I found that afterwards I was able to view the problem I was having with much more clarity.

4 comments:

  1. What a great idea. These are beautiful. I often use a scrap of silk to wipe my brushes on while I'm painting and I sometimes like them better than my painting - sad but true. Which of the above are on paper and which are on silk?

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  2. Nancy, I hate to admit it but the least exciting one is the one on silk. Taken from the same plate but the dyes just merged too much on the silk. In retrospect I should have used print paste with the silk. Something I definitely want to play with again soon!

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  3. these are beautiful! its so inspiring to see you create such beauty even amid your pain of lyme's. i just passed your lyme blog onto a friend who has just been diagnosed recently (also in brattleboro) and i'm sure it will be very helpful for her if she doesn't know about it already. have a lovely day.

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  4. Thanks Adrienne. I wish your friend the best of luck with her Lyme Battle. She can email me if she would like to.

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