Daily Archives: November 12, 2005

I knocked off work at 3pm yesterday so I could get my entry form in for the Traralgon Agricultural Show. I’m entering the Homespun section, my Kiri shawl and a skein of wool (yet to be spun).

Then I took myself to the library to look for books on printmaking. They have three books in the lending collection but I had to put an order on them since they are held at the Moe library. And there were two books in the Ex Yallourn section.

Yallourn was a town which was demolished to allow for the expansion of the Yallourn open cut coal mine. A work mate of mine grew up in Yallourn and it sounds like it was a great town with a cinema and a wonderful golf course… I also found out yesterday that I cannot borrow books designated ‘Ex Yallourn’.

But the librarian went out back to get me the two printmaking books from the collection. They were old but extremely absorbing, they have put the books aside for me and I’m going back for another read next week.

So, one of the techniques described was monoprinting…. I’ve done a bit of it with dye on fabric and with acrylic paints on paper, but never to my satisfaction, as it tends to look a lot like finger painting.

We’ll now I’m set, because I read about the technique where you roll out a thin film of ink onto a glass surface, lay the paper on top of the plate. The paper picks up the ink when you press or draw (I used a knitting needle) on the back. You can reuse the same plate to get a negative of previous images then press again to get interesting layered imagery.

The two photos above look slightly different in colour but in real life they are the same. Continue reading →