Multipurpose monoprints - art projects

Arts & Activities, Nov, 2002 by Judith Fowler

Children all over the world have always drawn. From their first finger marks through sand or a blob of pudding on their high chair tray to drawing with charcoal on fine paper, the urge to draw and make marks has been a part of human nature. Young children are delighted with their early kinesthetic mark-making, and this seemingly random activity soon evolves into their deliberate circular faces and simple embellishments.

When exploring the ooze and freedom of finger paint or freshly mixed tempera that has dripped off the brush and onto their hands, children will take their paint-covered fingers and press them onto a piece of paper--or the wall, furniture or even another person on some occasions! This early hand- and finger-painting is actually a basic transfer process that marks the beginning stages of what is later called a "monoprint" process.

UNDERSTANDING THE MONOPRINT PROCESS A monoprint is a combination between drawing and printmaking, and means exactly what the term indicates: a one-print art process. It incorporates a variety of transfer methods where the artist draws a single image or composition on a sheet of glass or plexiglass--or tabletop with ink or paint--and then places a piece of paper facedown on the drawn surface. The artist then rubs the back of the paper so that the image lifts off the table or glass surface and onto the paper. Instead of pressing the back side of the paper with their hand or a rubbing tool, some artists use a printing press to transfer their images and textures. However, whether it's basic finger paintings on a tabletop or the more sophisticated, detailed ink drawings by secondary students and college art majors, this process allows for easy expression without the need for expensive equipment or materials.

This is a fascinating art process that students of all ages enjoy. Monoprinting accepts a variety of drawing techniques and personal modes of expression. It is a most enjoyable and doable art process that can easily be integrated with other two-dimensional studio processes and materials such as acrylic painting, watercolor, pastel drawing, collage and mixed-media printmaking.

MULTIPLE-USE MONOPRINTING Understanding the multiple uses and variations of the monoprint process can be a lifesaver for K-12 art educators. When I first began teaching in a public school system as an art supervisor (really an art-on-the-cart art teacher responsible for 65 classrooms), I armed myself with three basic art processes that I used as the foundation for studio work with young learners. My semi-extensive art-history background, and a natural interest in aesthetic inquiry, defined the rest of my early survival skills for K-12 teaching.

First of all, I knew the watercolor process backward and forward, and this became the framework for a wide variety of mixed-media art lessons that I integrated with a series of annotated art-history lessons for K-12 students.

My second bread-and-butter art process was the use of a variety of drawing materials for observational and collage-based drawings. Here I would use the gamut of conte drawing sticks, vine and compressed charcoals, chalk pastels, and oil pastels. These materials were used in conjunction with a wide variety of drawing surfaces ranging from white or manila drawing paper, oak tag and light-colored construction paper, including scrap papers from art and framing shops.

However, the creme de la creme of my three art processes was monotype printmaking! With this process I could work on a basic introductory level with young learners in the lower-elementary grades, gradually introduce more complex techniques with the older grades, and then splurge with a combination of techniques for secondary students.

WHEN DID THIS PROCESS BEGIN?

As mentioned earlier, children of all ages have had the urge to leave their personal mark on the environment around them. This relates to mankind in general, where adults and children of all cultures have scratched, carved, drawn and painted their emotional and cognitive responses to their world; so this monoprint activity has been around for a very long time. However, as an artistic process taught in the schools, or used for commercial printing purposes, it has had a shorter history.

As early as the 18th century, toward the end of the 1700s, an artist by the name of Aloys Senefelder stumbled upon a basic transfer process that led to the development of fine-art and commercial lithographic printmaking. With a greasy stick much like a soft crayon, Senefelder began writing a laundry list on a slab of smooth limestone. Much to his surprise, this list transferred onto a sheet of paper and inspired his early work in the development of lithography. Commercial printing establishments jumped on this transfer process as a cheaper means of printing a variety of materials used for public communication.

Because of this innovative transfer process, Aloys Senefelder transformed the world of printed communication and became well known for this discovery. Monoprinting as an art activity in elementary and secondary schools emerged much later in the 20th century, and is still a relatively new process or studio technique for many teachers.