Monoprinting

Last fall, I got to spend a week at Anderson Ranch learning how to make monoprints with Karen Lederer. I have done a bunch of photo workshops over the years, but not many non-photo workshops. It was so nice to leave the computer and tablet behind, and stay completely away from pixels and Photoshop. To work with materials I can actually touch.

Monoprinting is pretty much what it sounds like. You build the elements of your print on a flat surface, then run that surface through a large, heavy press, and transfer all that detailed hand work onto a single piece of wet paper. You get what you get, which is one print, and it’s done. There is no command Z, which really brings focus to getting it right the first time. You can, however, take the remnants of your first print (known as a “ghost”) and run it through the press a second time, but it’s nothing like the first print.

After a few days of getting used to the tools and the media, I realized that I was actually working in a weird sort of analog handmade form of photoshop. I was employing the same techniques of creating shapes, layering color and playing with opacity to create pleasing compositions.

I fell completely in love with this new way of working. The days were flying by, and I couldn’t get enough. And after a week, I even ended up with a few prints that I was pretty proud of. Those made a brief appearance at an opening, and while several people inquired about buying them, I wasn’t quite ready to part with them. I’d decided that my next show was going to be all monoprints. No pixels or printers or editions — just making prints one at a time, by hand.