#02 Paintographs! Monoprints from Paintings
A few years back in my space at D Unit Studios, there was one particular session when I hadn't been paying attention to how much paint was pouring onto the floor below.
We're talking beyond mess! A pile of wasted paint! (Don't ask...)
The swirling but not-quite-mixing sprawl of forgotten paint looked so beautiful I couldn't bear wasting it, even though it would have been useless to save separate colours, and putting the lot in a tub would have turned it all brown.
For whatever reason the material I chose to deal with this mess was a pack of Epson 4x6" Gloss Photo Paper, I guess it was just the first 'paper' I found - anyways I tried one out without overthinking the placement and the results blew my mind! A red and gold almost perfectly detailed capture of the paint came out, no bleeding at all and a surprising amount was 'mopped' up too.
Ever since, they're a part of my practice,I have a few packs going up to A3, and at times I will literally take a set of monoprints from the surface of a larger work-in-progress if the conditions are right, the results are sometimes perfect tiny little paintings straight away! Others I'll keep for digital post-paintings or to work into later.
It feels like sending the painting out onto more surfaces, finding new ways to weave and balance layers together has always fascinated me.
I've noticed something interesting about that paper too, it's highly absorbent but also seals very quickly so it doesn't bleed. This makes sense when you think about it as it's designed for a machine to blast ink at it and to come out with a full colour a high quality image.
I think the tiny little detailed natural patterning that comes from either the paint itself, or in places the pressure-branching from the act of printing, appears in such fine detail because of this quick-drying but very absorbent surface. The high-gloss feel of any white space left behind may not to be to everyone's taste but for sure it creates an interesting result, personally I love the contrast of a high-gloss flat background behind a matte highly detailed foreground, there's an 'opposite-ness' to it.
But don't take my word for it, try it out yourself: Get a small pack of photo-printing paper and pour some paint onto a surface and give it a little mix up, or whatever! then lightly drop the paper on and then, pressing firmly on one corner of the paper, gently pull it up from the opposite corner.
You can play with this by actually pressing into the paper but I recommend the first technique first, so that you can see just how much detail comes without extra "printing" pressure.