Etching Press - Session 4

Today I took some time to create a few monoprints. A couple days ago I did some research and reading and concluded that what I'm creating are monoprints and not monotypes. I'll explain the definitions of the two terms in another posting later.
The imagery I worked up for today's press work were mostly grouse. I intended to try some loons as well, but got carried away with exploring the feather effects on the grouse. It was very entertaining, plus I discovered some more ways to make marks in the oil paint that I've been substituting for printing ink. Also, on the way to the studio, I stopped by our local glass shop and purchased an 11 by 14 inch piece of plexi-glass to use as my printing plate instead of the 8 by 10 inch paper-thin acetate that I'd used before.
Here is one of the grouse monoprints from this printing session:

 

This is printed on the same kind of Japanese paper that I used in the earlier printing sessions. Using a rubber brayer,I rolled out the paint  in an irregular rectangle shape. Then I wiped away the "air" (negative space) around the bird, leaving bits of the rectangle's edge to serve as a kind of border or "frame" for the bird. Rolling a coat of inck onto the plate and then removing areas from it to create the image is a reductive process/print. Had I started with an empty plate and then brushed the grouse on  that would have been an additive process/print. I used a cotton rag to remove the white areas; if I removed too much, I simply painted it back in using a bristle brush. The sharp white lins were created using the edge of a small scrap of matboard

The final image measures about 8 by 6 inches.

Well, as I'm writing this, it's very close to turning into tomorrow. And Coast to Coast is on with some lively discussion about the State of the Union address. I think I'll make some hot tea and sit a little closer to the radio for a bit.