more monotype

Looking through this series again, I really like it. So here are some more, including some of the white-pencil drawings. The white pencil, due to the fact that it gets blunt, required constant sharpening to maintain the level of detail that could be achieved by the ink pens.

So here is more of Little Apocalypse! From the top down:

Where You Grew Up: This is the second piece of the series, done in pencil. This is where the second protagonist hails from, Where I Grew Up being the first piece. Unfortunately, that one, done in ink pen, is embarrassingly out of focus and its rather charming (if I do say so myself) details can't be seen.

What Happened to the Homestead: I imagined this as a place the protagonists passed by, maybe camped out in, some wholesome home left to decay in the dust, full of photographs of people long dead. Again, something about disintegrating Americana speaks to me.

Then we have Summit City, another of the three cities they pass through. These cities are populous centers of the new country, the one that's struggling back up after whatever apocalyptic event (take your pick) happened. If Valentine City is the hedonistic center, this one is the center of learning and spirituality, built high up and full of aerials and towers, spanning the peaks of mountains, hard to get to. The third is Oil City, which I'm not posting, but that one's an industrial center, sludgy and dirty and ruled by profit. I guess the cities are kind of like city-states, each one with its own set of values, ethics and cultural traditions.

Finally, we have The Road Out, in which the protagonists leave an unnamed settlement for the wilderness. They're done. They are so freakin' done, man. This is the second-to-last piece (there are 10 in total), and immediately proceeds Our House. They've left the problems of society and make off on their own. This would be the view looking backwards.

Anyway, if you're wondering, all of the monotype prints I've posted were achieved the same way. I started by mixing ink(s) and applying it with a brayer, which is like a rubber paint roller, onto a Plexiglas plate. Then I sprayed mineral spirits onto them for the blotched effect. Finally, the inked plate was lain onto a piece of damp paper and rolled through a press (which is quite a nice workout) and hung up to dry. The scenery was drawn on later. I started with the darkest ones, like The Road Out and Where You Grew Up, lots of blacks, browns, greens and some oranges, which evolved into browns, then blues, and then lighter colors. I was kind of just playing around at first, but the pieces slowly evolved into a story, and the pieces sort of fell into order.