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Monotype and White Line Prints

The Outer Cape landscape is what drives most of my work. I love being immersed in it, and paint plein air extensively. Those experiences infuse my print making work. I walk the landscape-the shorelines, dunes, and marshes, on the bayside and the oceanside, taking photos of places I may want to return to paint, or to be jumping off points for studio paintings or prints. The prints I create are monotypes, often called “painterly prints”, and white line woodcuts, also known as “Provincetown prints” from where they originated. 

In making monotypes, I paint on plexiglass, most often using brayers, and often layering colors of the oil-based inks which tends to create some translucency in the final works. I make shapes and marks with the brayers and their edges. Using a printing press, I make one image on paper, and sometimes, a second “ghost print”.  What emerges from the press is to some extent a surprise, as some colors blend and some marks are reshaped. The layers of ink and the sweeping as well as choppy marks of the brayers evoke shifting clouds and sands, and hint at the depths and constant movement in the skies and seas. 

Making white line prints starts with carving in a hard wood block. Here, I simplify a landscape image, using line and shape to convey its essence. I then paint with watercolors, section by section, overlaying each section with watercolor paper and hand rubbing to create the prints. While more than one print can be made from a carved block, each is unique in its color application, and sometimes in the paper used.