George Mason’s Monotypes
Thursday, September 24th, 2009 by richard
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George Mason is an artist from Nobleboro, ME with a long history of painting encaustic onto plaster. This month, he came down to Kingston for a week to experiment in our workshop with encaustic monotype. Image 1
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George came here loaded with elaborate and delicate stencils that he had drawn freehand and cut out in his studio. The stencils were part of a repeating monotype process, creating an interplay between encaustic’s molten chaos, the stencils’ rigid patterns, the absorbency of the paper, and ghost images from previous pulls. Image 2
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His first step is to lay a color on the palette. Image 3
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The stencil is laid over that. Image 4
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A sheet built up with the paint from unsuccessful pulls is reutilized by laying face-down over the stencil. Newsprint is laid over this and burnished with matboard shims and the blotter is pulled. Image 5
The palette now has the layer of white, the stencil, and the color from the blotter. A sheet of Arches Text is laid on the ghost. Image 7
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The paper absorbs the color. Image 8
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The palette is wiped clean and Egyptian violet is applied. Image 9
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The previous print is laid face-up, allowing the violet underneath to soak up like a slowly developing photo negative. Image 10, 11 & 12
George plays with endless variations on this process. Different papers create different effects. He particularly likes the way the metallic colors work in the monotypes, partially separating out from the wax and bunching up in ways that look to him like ice floating on water.
Learn more about George’s work at: www.georgemasonart.com
Interested in learning about Monotypes, click here to find out about our Visting Artist Workshop with Monotype expert Paula Roland.