Printmaking workshops

The Rocky Mountain Printmaking Alliance's Inaugural Symposium was in town last week. I had a fabulous time meeting many talented printmakers. I also attended two very inspirational workshops. One on the "Exploring the potential of Polyester Plates in Lithography" presented by Andrew and Kathryn Polk of Arizona. We didn't get a chance to try the process ourselves however the instructions/demos were excellent! My friend Amy and I have plans to experiment with this process in the near future.

The next day I took a two-day workshop from Melanie Yazzie, the Associate Professor of Art at the university of Colorado, on monoprints using Ukra Inks. (a set for myself is on my Birthday wish list)

If you ever have a chance to take one of Melanie's workshops, I highly recommend it! She is so sweet and giving of her time and talents. I wish she could have been there with us on the second day when we all started printing. I was amazed at how many lovely prints came from our afternoon together.

Here are some examples of the stencil monotypes I worked on.

As well as examples of the 3 color reductive monotype method:

 

I enjoyed the stencil method, as you can print many monotypes very quickly. Some of the less successful prints I plan on binding into visual journals and drawing over the top of the prints.

My favorite of the two was the reductive monoprints. I related to the painterly process much more than the stencils. I had taken a similar workshop last year, but we used oil-based inks instead. I like the soy-based Akua inks better for this process.

One of the techniques presented involved using sharpies. Yes, sharpies! I am excited to experiment with this and see how it works in my visual journals. (I may add this to my Savage Mirror workshop agenda this fall!)