Two more explorations in the current series. The one called Lauren’s Underbelly got its title from the happy little fact that the underpainting/monotype was a portrait of a pregnant woman. She apparently gave birth to this painting. It’s a girl!
Hidden Defect, oil into monotype on paper, 22′ x 16″
Lauren’s Underbelly, oil into monotype on paper, 18″ x 12″
The last week and a half has been a blur of illness and commercial work. I have nothing new finished to post. So here’s an older monotype from the archives.
Deep South, 2009, monotype, 18″ x 12″
Private collection
I’m continuing to take old and not particularly successful monotypes and reworking them with oil paint. It’s not quite working here perhaps because I haven’t resolved the relationship of the figure and its treatment with the breaking up of the picture plane. The shapes are not jiving, but I do like the figure.
Extended right, oil paint on monotype on paper, 1992-2011
Greens were eaten that hot day at the neighborhood bar in Carroll Gardens. She was amused that he had ordered a Greek Salad as the Japanese team brought honor to their distraught nation.
mixed media: graphite, pencil, goauche, benzyl alcohol ink, india ink
To be clear, if one is making a monotype from life, working from a an inanimate subject like a still life doesn’t pose many problems. working from a live landscape is more challenging in that one requires a press(if one is using a press) to be nearby, and working from the live model is only problematic if the model becomes uncomfortable since the process can be a stop and start, dragged out thing. The monotypes below were made from life “once removed”, in that I drew the model in a sketchbook first and then created the monos from the drawings.
Tom Bennett
Rex and Rabbit 1, monotype, 16″ x20″
Rex and Rabbit 2, monotype, 16″ x 20″
This week I have some more interpretive monotypes based on dreams of blogger Toni Tiller. I have included two variations of a dream that involves reform and retribution. In Toni’s words: “I got away with murder once, so I thought I could do it again, turns out it was only beginners luck. I paid my debt to society and was released into the sea, instantly transformed into a whale, enormous and weightless. It was only in moments of exhilaration when I leapt above the surface was I reminded of the heaviness of truth, and came crashing back down.” The other print is based on her succinct narrative: “spitting up diamonds.”
Whale Dream 1, monotype, 16″ x 20″
Whale dream 2, monotype, 16″ x 20″
Spitting Diamonds, monotype, 16″ x 20″
The figure in a dance of distortion. ink and graphite with gouache on paper. 11″ x 8.5″
A recent monotype.
2009, 20″ x 16″
by Tom Bennett
I discovered the monotype when I was about 19 in the University of Connecticut print shop. I had been taking courses in etching and lithography and was very familiar with Edgar Degas’ figurative monochromatic monotypes and their wonderful expressive, organic essence. I picked up a zinc plate and rolled some etching ink on it and started to wipe away…. This was it! This was what I had been looking for! A direct, painterly way of printmaking, without all the long, laborious hours of acid baths and filing, reworking and etching, lifting and separating…. a single unique print. It can be sustained and considered; it can be frequently spontaneous. The process of building the image requires commitment, speed, and a willingness to adjust and change the image as it develops. There is a luminosity that builds in the layering of color, texture that forms and at times unexpected outcomes that occur as a result of the pressure from the press. Can’t get enough.
Here are two influenced by a friends visit to the New Mexican desert.
click on image for larger image
White Sands 4,2009, monotype on rice paper, 16 x 20
Dripping Springs, 2009, monotype on rives bfk, 16 x 20
Agora Gallery - the proud sponsor of the Chelsea International Fine Art Competition, which offers contemporary artists the opportunity to show their original art at one the most acclaimed juried art shows in Chelsea, New York’s art galleries district.
darteboard
jdhastings
ssstephg
Tom Bennett
Toni Tiller
Jason Gray
probrucer
laelia e. mitchell
