Making Monotype Prints with Renee Manford

Happy Valentines Day!

My continuing art education took me to Lane Community College today in the Mini-Musemobile.

Renee Manford who was featured in an earlier blog post here and another blog in my Art for the Soul Page is showing me the ropes in the art world. Renee works at a local gallery and has offered to help me get my photographs show with suggestions and by forwarding on the call for artists notices she gets. I have in turn offered to help Renee get a web page put together.

So today I wanted to get some pictures of Renee producing a monotype print, her favorite medium.

"A monoprint is most definitely original art. The printmaking process involved in making a monoprint (sometimes also referred to as a monotype) is named such because only one print is made at a time, after which the process must begin again if the artist wishes to create another print in the edition. The process involves painting on or inking a non-porous surface such as an etching plate, glass, Plexiglas, or the like, and then pressing paper against the painted or inked surface resulting in unique works on paper."

The project she worked on today was a class project and she had to do a self-portrait. She was working from a photograph the teacher had taken. The class is at Lane Community College better known as LCC. As a side note that is the same college my son Isaac attends.


The monotype process starts with a clear piece of Plexiglas or glass. Renee used the photograph as a guide only and worked first on a sketch using a special pen.


I liked the view of the tools of the trade but these are not all the tools as I found out later.


After the sketch was complete Renee mixed the paints she would use on a flat piece of glass that was her palette.

The mixing process is interesting and Renee pointed out how she liked to use red with black for a richer more vibrant color rather than mixing the darker less vibrant blue.


She brought some monoprints she had done earlier. She is the baby in this one featuring her father, mother and big sister.


This one is Renee as a young girl and ....

... in this one she is in the center wearing a green skirt with her sister in blue and her cousin in brown.


Back to the process we find her filling in the background adding a darker base to the image and a lighter grey-green background. Most of the background is done with a hard plastic roller and the detail work is done with a small palette knife.


You can see the roller in this picture as the image starts to come together.


You can see the red/black mixture being spread in this image.


I like the concentration you can see in this shot and it's amazing how an artist can visualize an image and then execute the steps to make it come alive. There are a lot of serious looks amidst the smiles as the monoprint starts to take shape.


Her head tilts from side to side looking for the right place and the correct color to apply to the glass surface.


Finally it's time for the specialty tool - a Q-Tip - how cool to see one used as a painting tool.



So now the black and white photograph has found color in her mind and ready for some final touches.


I took a break and shot some prints hanging in the studio then ...

... walked outside to shot this sculpture just outside the building.


When I got back in Renee was checking the monoprint over for places in need of a tweak or two.


I think this is the hardest part on the nerves because the artist has to make the decision to continue or begin all over.


In a detail view you can get an idea of hundred of strokes, maybe thousands that one print requires.


Looking through one of the presses I got this shot of her doing some of the final touches that went from the tools you have already see to the use of her fingernail for the fine detail.


Finally the work is ready to dry and to speed the process there is always the handy-dandy hair dryer.


Now it's getting exciting as she places the glass on the press positioning it on a cloth backing.


I found this very enlightening that the paper used for the transfer is given a bath in a large tank to soak up some water.


You can see the edge of the tank in this shot as she prepares the paper for printing.



So all is ready for the paper.


This is an exacting part of the process in that you want the paper straight for a good straight copy. This process produces one picture only (there is one exception) so if this part is flawed you may have a wasted day's worth of work.

Her right hand is on the adjustment knob that regulates the pressure as the roller travels over the paper, glass and cloth cover.


There is a big spoke wheel that's used to mover the roller and you can see Renee reaching for it with her left hand in this shot.


This is the finished product of a work that started at 1:00pm and was completed about 5:00pm

I mentioned this was a monoprint process and mono means one unique print. There is one way to get two images and that is to repress the residual paint on the glass. Since most of the paint is transfered to the first print as second image is not the same as the first so they are both mono prints and one of one (1/1) .


Renee graciously made one more run using the ink left on the glass making a "ghost image" monoprint for me to have. Isaac took this picture in the garage at night with low light and the color is a little off in the photograph but I love this picture. It's my own unique piece of art from the hands of a truly fine artist and a friend.

It was a very nice and interesting four hours and I got to meet three of Renee's classmates who came and went during the process. I even got to meet her professor. Thank you Renee I feel at least a little better educated about art. That's not a bad thing since both of my sisters are very accomplished artists.

Scrabble Score ~

Yesterday Scrabble Queen 349 - The Contender 296
Today Scrabble Queen 356 - The Contender 342

Quote of the Day

"The best mirror is an old friend." ~ George Herbert

Roaming around 83 miles from home

We are back at 7 Feathers Casino and RV Resort and the weather is OK - not raining and not too cold. Cow Creek has lots of flowing water right now and a few logs in the creek. And a few large boulders like this white one.


It looks here as though if the creek were higher we could get some blockage and some excitement - the kind of excitement you do not want to have.


I liked the moss covered log here and you can see where something scraped some of the moss off. I'm guessing a large limb or tree trunk went under and a branch was sticking up as it went under.

Up close the moss is beautiful and very complex.


New branches are popping out from the moss and look ready to bud.

This looks like an outgrowth of grass withered from the previous fall.


The have pretty cool water faucets here and I spotted this one on my way back from the pool and jacuzzi, which made for a relaxing time after our breakfast and slot machine losses at the Casino.


I'd love to do one of these topiaries some day buy I'm not a clever Edward Scissorhands.

I like the buds on this bush. They remind me of the Redbud tree at my parents home when I was a young boy. It was a nice day today with a lunch of snow crab leg (we only got one) and some snacks and chili dogs for dinner. We were very thrifty today.

Scrabble Score Scrabble Queen 286 (bad draws and only one "E") - The contender 337

Quote of the Day ~ On being different or being seen as deviant

‘If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.’ ~ Henry David Thoreau

‘Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.’ ~ Cecil Beaton

First Friday Art Walk

The first Friday of every month a group of folks, mostly artists get together and go for a walk through the Art Galleries in Eugene, Oregon's Downtown. I was invited by Vern Wright to join the group and decided I'd try something new. Being a night person it seemed like a great idea although my evenings are usually at home on my computer or enjoying the stillness of the night air.

The place to meet was the Jacobs Gallery at the Hult Center in Eugene at Willamette Street between 6th and 7th Avenues. I was a little late arriving and had never met Vern so I went to the Jacobs Gallery.

Looking back down Willamette from the Hult Center was kind of interesting with the wet streets and the light reflections. By the way that's the mini-musemobile fourth car on the left.

The Hult Center for Performing Arts is actually a complex of buildings with a huge hall for performances and several other spaces for meetings and other activities. The Jacobs Gallery is a part of the complex.

I liked the lights and the angles on the roof across from the gallery.


This metal sculpture was rather interesting and looked a little like an anchor and a fallen TV antenna. I'll go back some time to get some information on the work. I did think it was pretty cool.

I walked into the Jacobs Gallery looking for Vern and asked one of the gallery people if they knew him. There were a couple of gentlemen there and she said one was the husband of one of the artist and she thought the other was one of the artists on display. I kind of hung around and viewed the art and especially liked the work of Claire Flint a local artist with a wonderful style that reminded me of the Greek Orthodox Church I went to when I was very young and the Iconic Art that was there. Click on Clair's name above to see her art.


The next place on the tour (from the information I got from Vern was the OPUS6IX gallery.


The OPUS6IX was much larger and is across 7th Ave. from the Hult just west of Willamette. They even had wine at the door and were very crowded with the sophisticated set. Now you have to understand the sophisticated set in Eugene are not the same as that group in NY, LA or even Portland, they are a pretty nice group of pretty normal group folks that enjoy art and doing interesting things. So I felt very comfortable in my jeans hanging out there. I talked to a wonderfully talented artist named Kirk Lybecker whose work could easily be confused for photography from a distance. I enjoyed talking to Kirk for a short while before I moved on. When I left I noticed that gentleman that was the "artist" from the Jacobs gallery and started to wonder if he might just be Vern but by the time I finished talking to Kirk Lydecker he was gone.


Next I went to the main gallery of the two Karin Clarke galleries on Willamette. Renee Manford, who was in an earlier blog when she gave me an artist's tour of her two shows, works at the Clarke gallery. I enjoyed the art there then walked across the street to the...

White Lotus Gallery where a photographer was on exhibit and there answering questions, he was so busy I never got to talk to him but he had some nice petroglyph photographs and other shots from foreign lands.


I stopped to take this shot of a covered walkway that goes between the Karin Clark Gallery and the M. Jacobs Furniture store.


Across Willamette from the Main Clarke gallery and next to the White Lotus is the Karin Clarke Annex gallery. My favorite artist of the evening was Adam Grosowsky this is one of his pieces through the window.

Next I walked a couple of blocks to the Fenario Gallery. I had visited there about a week ago to check into their printing services.

The art there was very colorful and very creative and I got a chance to talk with person who actually does the technical side of the print services.


I then hung out taking pictures of various things like this grill work on the building at the NE corner of Broadway and Willamette.

I especially like this bicycle.

... and the view down Willamette looking south.


The corners at Broadway and Willamette have these interesting posts and cobblestone sections of the roadway.


There were some stairs going down from the sidewalk near Fenario Gallery but I think it was forbidden territiry.

Eugene is a big bicycle community with miles of bike paths and therefore lots of biclyle racks like these on Willamette near 8th Avenue.

Finally I went back to the Clarke Gallery Annex and found Renee and guess who was there Vern (the man in the middle - he was the person I saw in all the other galleries) and I also got to meet Larry an artist with the Frist Friday Group. We all went to Zenon's for coffee and a little desert [actually Renee had tea] and after a great conversation with them all, we read Renee's tea leaves and decided her art career was about to explode with success. Vern graciously invited me to a First Saturday artists meeting to show and critic each others art. If I can I'll go. They are all very nice folks.

Scrabble Score - No Scrabble since I was out past Scrabble Queen's bedtime.

Quote of the Day ~

"Art is best when the artist creates their life rather creates to live" ~ pviel