Monoprinting: a print you can only make once
Art & Design · Key Stage 2 · The School
Only one copy, ever
Most prints can be made again and again from the same block. A MONOPRINT cannot. Once it is pulled from the surface, the ink pattern is gone. You can never make an identical second one.
Drawing into wet ink
Roll a thin, even layer of ink onto a flat surface, like a sheet of plastic or glass. Lay paper on top. Draw on the BACK of the paper with a pencil, pressing firmly. Wherever you press, ink transfers onto the paper below.
Why every one is different
Lift the paper and the drawing appears, made entirely of ink pressed from underneath. The ink surface is now smudged and disturbed. Roll fresh ink on and the pattern starts completely differently. That is why a monoprint can never be exactly repeated.
Roll blue ink thinly and evenly across a plastic sheet. Lay a piece of paper gently on top, without pressing it down anywhere yet. Turn the paper over so you can see its back. Draw a simple flower on the back, pressing firmly with a pencil, all the way round each petal. Peel the paper away slowly from one corner. The flower appears on the front, made of blue ink, with a slightly rough, unpredictable edge that no other printing method makes quite the same way.