Angela Saxon
My recent monotypes focus on moving water and vast water/skyscapes. I use soft rubber brayers to apply ink (rather than brushes which I typically use in painting) to layer overlapping shapes. By varying the pressure I apply to the brayer, I am able to achieve painterly marks.
Specifically the series is focused on vistas of Lake Michigan — the majestic clouds and ever-changing horizon, breaking waves, and flat calm waters. It’s been exciting to see how this series of monotypes, even though smaller in scale than my paintings on canvas, portray expansive space.
I have painted all my life and only took up printmaking in the last few years. I had wondered why an artist would make a monotype when they could just as easily make a painting? How could it be that different?
The opportunity to explore that very question came about in 2019. A good friend and fellow artist has a large Conrad printing press — we dusted it off and began to play. It was instant addiction.
In my paintings, ideas evolve over time, sometime for years on a single canvas. Each mark is visible as added, and there are hundreds of small reactions, mark after mark — looking and making decisions, moving forward until the painting is complete.
In my monotypes, marks are also made one after the other, each reacting to the next, but because of the process they are layered on a plate (for me that is 1/8” plexiglass). It is challenging to know absolutely how all those marks are going to print when transferred, via pressure, to paper to yield the monotype.
Printing ink is quite different from paint. Transparency is harder to gauge based on application of ink. And the final monotype is a reversed image from the one painted on the plate. So while I ‘think’ I know what’s going to happen, there are always surprises. It’s truly a ‘wow’ moment every time I pull a print.
Incorporating printmaking into my artistic practice has been an expansive experience for me creatively. I am gaining an ever-widening ‘vocabulary’ of marks that I use across my spectrum of art making.
