Walking along Bohannon Road near Syria, Virginia

Walking along Bohannon Road near Syria, Virginia

Walking through the world of monotypes


Walking across Virginia’s western Piedmont, making a daily record of this beautiful and changing land as it evolves under the hand of nature and the actions of humans, and creating monotypes of what I see...these things define who I am. Three stretches of road near my home totaling five miles have virtually become part of me. And I have recorded some parts of them in monotypes over and over for a quarter of a century, since that day in which I abruptly changed careers and included this unique medium as part of what I would do for the rest of my life.I began my new life back then by taking classes in printmaking, and when I turned to the monotype, I immediately found fulfillment in the medium’s directness and its ability to teach me about light and how minute by minute, daylight can transform trees, fields, ditches, and mountains. From the beginning I wanted to develop an almost photographic look (and I do make freehand sketches inspired from photographs taken “on the road”) and have always worked in variations of a single dark color. The challenge, of course, is to communicate each scene’s “story” in grayscale rather than in color.Like all monotypes, each print is unique, an edition of one, made by painting onto a clear acrylic plate and transferring that image directly to paper using a press. The manipulation of oil color on the plate with various brushes and tools takes many hours to achieve the scene I remember; then I lay a sheet of damp paper on top of the “wet” plate and run both through my etching press. When I peel the paper off, virtually all of the color transfers, and a single, unrepeatable image is created.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

"December 1, 2008, 4:11 p.m. on Etlan Road" printed on December 8, 2008



I dread the arrival of “Dark December,” but on this 45 degree afternoon about a mile up the road from where I live, the late sun suddenly shoots bolts of yellow light straight down Champe Plain Valley, illuminating the trees and weeds in its path. The intense pleasure of this moment takes me by surprise, and I make photographs and notes with plans to see if I can revisit this simple event in a monotype. The “blue winter sky” is made by brushing the oil color across the acrylic sheet, then tapping it down with a stencil brush to get the soft “lithographic” effect. The twigs and branches, are then painted in with a thin brush and touched up by pencil tips wrapped in scraps of paper towel. As I paint in the long shadows, the print begins to take on a life of its own. (12 by 16.5 inches, printed on Stonehenge paper)
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