Update: Turning Demo Prints into Fine Art

I’m doing a lot of demo prints recently, and I’m the type of person who prefers to just make art work rather than sketch it out.  Obviously, this is sometimes more successful than other times.  Lately, I’ve been getting some good images out of my demos.

Welcome new printshop eyeball overlord!  The print above was a subtractive monoprint demo combined with a stencil monoprint demo followed by a chine collé demo.  Phew!  This lovely print now reminds us to be kind, courteous, clean and safe–or else we’re gonna get it!

The print above is the source of the red “YOU” in the previous image.  Hilariously, even though when using paper stencils, one does not have to reverse text, I’m so accustomed to reversing text when printing that I spelled “YOU” backwards without a second thought when laying the stencils out.  Hence the charming “UOY”.

This was a print I did in advance of the demo to be certain of the pressure/paper/ink/matrix combo.  Later I shaded the text with an ink pencil as if it were cast or carved, and the perspectival distortion of this photo really sets that illusion off particularly well.  This print would look great installed directly across from a mirror.

See?

Moving on.

The image above is clearly related to the eyeball overlord; it’s the ghost image, slightly reworked with a bit of ink pencil detailing.  I might add more to this print.  I find it lacking in authoritarian je ne sais quoi.

Ah, the soothing chartreuse and pheasant brown color palette really puts the zen in a stencil monoprint demo.  Or not.  I printed the second run one day after the first, and it shows some offset from the print below.  Don’t stare too long at this one.

Can you find the print above?  Pheasant brown and chartreuse–it’s either nuking your rods and cones or disappearing into the woodwork; who knew?  This was the ghost run of the brown run above, followed a day later by the second (chartreuse) run as part of the stencil-based monoprinting demo.

The print above is a drypoint I worked up for a 2-plate printing and à la poupée inking demo.  One can do wonders with a mezzotint rocker and a burnisher!  Oh, okay–and some zinc and files and clamps and steel wool and ink and tarlatan and a phone book and good quality paper and a press and blankets.  And tape.  One always needs tape.