Back to Black - Lindisfarne monotype paintings
When I learnt how to create monotypes at art school, it was a medium known for it's swift mark-making that delivered lively, expressive results. Before I go further, I'll just define "monotype" as a one-off hand-made print made by printing from a smooth surface (I use an acrylic sheet).
Monotype was made popular by the impressionists especially Degas who made lively prints of figures using the expressive qualities of the medium. Picasso, Klee and Gauguin also produced monotypes. These were usually in just one colour - often black - and that was how I learnt it as a printmaking techninique.
Over the years, I've added more colour, pattern and shape as I've experimented and innovated with the medium. Sometimes I have several layers of colour and it can get quite complicated. In recent months, I've felt the need to simplify and re-discover the expressive qualities of the medium. If you've read my previous posts about this: Rear View Mirror and A Sunset Art Revolution, you'll know that I've changed my working method to print first with one dark key colour then add veils of translucent colour.
I often use Payne's grey for this which is a bluish dark grey but with this series I went back to black, modifying it with transparent ink to make it more or less dense. This means I can still create a number of visual levels in the picture with just one main colour. I'm really enjoying the simplicity of this and how it frees me up to be more expressive and able to focus on the mark-making especially in the sky. Black also has the advantage of not going green when you overprint with yellow!
Our Northumberland castles make the perfect focus to develop my coastal theme with reflections. Now, I do know that it's pretty unlikely that the North Sea would ever be calm enough to reflect in a mirror-like way! But I'm creating compositions that seem interesting to me, rather than working directly from life - thank goodness for artistic licence! However, I do hope to do some raging seas with waves crashing against the shore - I'm working towards it... but waves are very difficult!
I hope you'll agree that working in black with delicate veils of colour gives a Romantic, expressive style, well suited to the subject. In case you're wondering what I mean by Romantic, I found this definition:
Romanticism was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries that emphasized emotion, individualism, and the sublime beauty of nature, often as a reaction against the rationalism and industrialization of the Enlightenment.
Think Heathcliffe, stormy seas, high misty mountains and lonely explorers!
Now after all that celebration of black, here's some pink! Sorry to jump around like this but these pieces belong colour-wise with the series I showed in A Sunset Art Revolution but they were late to the party, so I include them now. They follow all the same principles as the black ones but with a colour palette of Magenta, Prussian Blue and Raw Sienna.
It's amazing how many colour values and tones you can achieve with just three colours. Echoes in the Reeds is the same composition as Whispers in the Twilight above. With the different colours, the feeling is completely changed! You can see a short video of me printing the final stages of this piece here on YouTube.
I really wrestled with Radiance on the Shore - I'm determined to figure out how to get the reflections on wet sand working well. It's a much more complicated proposition than the others as the sea, wet sand and dry sand all have to be distinct yet integrated. There are several layers of translucent colour. I'll return to this subject as I think there's a lot more mileage in it. You can see me working on this piece on YouTube.
These original monotypes including the Lindisfarne paintings are available to purchase now. To reserve one, just call or text on +447717256169 or email me info@rebecca-vincent.co.uk
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I absolutely love these images, Rebecca. I'm muddling around in my studio trying to get something that in some small way might approximate them. I stand in awe!!!