Today I tested out a monoprint (colography) project with my children and a friend's children in preparation for a workshop I will be teaching on Monday for the Palo Alto Libraries. Here are some images of their printing plates being created from cardboard and mattboard.
The children started off by cutting out bits of cardboard, ribbon, toothpicks and plastic sushi grass. The ribbon and sushi grass were attached with hot melt glue. On child used the hot melt gun to draw lines on his board as well.
Below are the printing plates after each child had pulled several prints with different colors. Often these plates are just as interesting and framable as the final prints.
During the printing process we discovered that one could apply paint to the boards with brushes, not just with the rollers. The lines of the brush hairs created nice textures in the prints. It was quite hot today so we were frequently adding drops of water to the paint to keep it moist enough on the glass inking plates. The paper we used was Japanese calligraphy paper.
The best way to create prints with this type of printing is to ink the board and then lay the paper onto of the wet board. With a clean, dry brayer, you roll and press the paper on the board. We also used our fingers to press in the hard to reach corners and over the ribbon areas. I highly recommend having a drying rack to store these prints as they dry.
Below are images of a few of the prints they created.
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