KSGoW, Elisabeth CUMMINGS and Euan MACLEOD are discussed by Michael Kempson on the most recent episode of the Art W**k podcast. Michael Kempson of Cicada Press, refers to himself as a custom printmaker and has been working with Elisabeth and Euan among many others, for years. To listen to the full episode, visit the link below or search for Art W**k on the podcast platform of your choice.
Excerpt from Michael’s interview, selected from his response to the question: What about the monotype?
Monotypes and monoprints have been developed consistently with some of these techniques because they have their roots and their origins in the fundamental principles. Monoprints and monotypes are probably more aligned within the intaglio family because we are using an etching press to print it. We are using the principle of printing with pressure onto paper.
But a monotype, and this is something that I have been doing with a range of artists, including Elisabeth Cummings, which is where we have connected. We would use a metal plate. In this case, it’s a commercial plate, but it’s been grained.
So, it almost has the tooth of paper, has a bit of resistance there.
I won’t bore you with the full process, but we add a releasing agent to the plate. The artist makes the watercolour image onto the plate, and I add a solvent layer, which is a unifying layer to the image prior to printing, and we print and transfer it onto paper, and it looks, in fact, it has the look of a watercolour, but it’s not quite a watercolour. It has other qualities to it because of the technical process of printing it
But what’s distinctive about monotyping is we’re working on a plate that doesn’t have something etched into it or cut into it. It’s the mark of the artist that can’t be reproduced or can’t be printed more than once.
