Monoprinting and First world problems
I’m creating 52 works by May 2024. When I finish Red Playground Derivative Squared 1 and 2 I will have made 8 of my target 52 works.
Monoprinting Trials
Because I want to be transparent with my YouTube viewers, this time I share some of the trials I have in the studio. In making my latest larger artworks, where I mono print with oil based ink, I experience a lot of difficulty.
Admittedly, some are of my own making, such as neglecting to properly clean up the brayers after using therm. Let’s face it! No one wants to watch the great amount of clean up that printing requires!
Working with new oil ink on the most extremely pretreated paper to date greatly inhibited progress with these works. Woven print plates worked beautifully on the smooth paper at the Sue Cooke workshop a couple of years ago, but did not work at all on my textural paper.
Then there were technical difficulties: my overhead iPhone camera stopped working because of lack of memory space. This is an ongoing situation to resolve when making and editing videos.
Please watch, “I won’t quit, no matter what! Monoprint trials with oil-based ink!”
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The Inspiring works
Regrouping
This week I cannot show you the completed works because I had to turn my attention to editing the video for this week.
However, be on the lookout for the completed works in next weeks post and video, where the end result even astonished me! There’s a sneak preview of the works down below from the next video.
complaining or recognising solvable problems?
As I share my challenges of creating art around life I am ever mindful that I live a first world life. My studio trials are shown as a way to encourage you to NOT give up on your artistic pursuits. Resilience is key to the artist’s pursuit.
My problems, in and out of the studio, regardless of any discomfort they cause me, arise out of prosperity. In other words, I really like to avoid complaining.
Having lived in the USA and, now, New Zealand, I strive to be cognisant of my many blessings, including, but certainly not limited to:
- The resources to start a business, even though I chose to close it.
- Owning an older home that needs upkeep and repair.
- Ready access to good, wholesome and affordable food for which I must take the time to shop and prepare.
- Access to good, affordable, and available healthcare.
- A kind husband who encourages my artistic pursuits and with whom I choose to spend time.
- Affordable and plentiful local art supplies procured by a 10 minute drive into the CBD.
- A home art studio and space to create, clean-up, sell, and store my works.
As a purposeful video creator I aim to embrace better story telling. Good stories emerge from talking about struggles people have and how they prevail! (or not!)
As a story teller I need to talk about misfortunes in and out of the studio so that others can better relate to my experience there.
Just as I find problem solving is good for increasing creativity in studio, perhaps, it’s the same principle for making videos. I want to tell relatable stories to encourage you and, yet, be mindful of my first world existence.
I hope you’ll join me next week when for the debut of my new oil monoprints. In the meantime, be sure to check out my previous blogpost, “Monoprinting with Inktense on the Roughest Paper yet!” by clicking here.
Do you find my sharing my struggles in the studio helpful to you? Please let me know in the comments below.
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Is there a better title?
All of the ‘Red Playground’ works only have working titles, so far. I’d appreciate your suggestions for a final title. Post them in the comments below or in the comment section on any of the videos of the series.
