upending the plan

creative time has been pretty limited of late and I can go along with that for only so long before I stage a revolt

mid-week I hit the tipping point 

I can remember the exact moment it happened - an artist I follow on Instagram posted a beautiful concertina book of various monotypes and drawings, all in black and white

I do love that kind of work and though I did spend some time early in the New Year working with charcoal I haven't done near enough of the black and white drawings I've been wanting to do

so, a bit of foot stamping led to a change of plans for Friday afternoon and I spent a couple of hours getting into my jar of black ink with a roller and a q-tip or two

and did a mono print of my own

a non-existent view of clay cliffs along the Yukon River 

I didn't refer to any photos at all, just mucked along reacquainting myself with the ink and all the various ways I could think of removing it from the printing plate

pulling it off, trying to add it back when I got a bit carried away...  the trees along the top were tricky but I enjoyed the challenge  

the image below (courtesy of the Yukon News) shows the cliffs south of the city centre a few years ago when there a slide in the spring

and here they are cloaked in snow two years later

I noticed after the fact I had wiped a bit too much ink away from the face of the cliffs, taking away all the texture

I'm thinking of drawing into this, adding back some of the marks I wiped away - lots of time to consider that as the ink gets absorbed into the paper

this end of the print still retains some and is more like what I'll be striving for next time around

a good start then, and as my dander is still up, today I cut a small selection of print-making papers in between working in the yard and getting groceries 

the printing press is still out, the ink and tools are ready and I'll be back in there soon enough

have a good week,

Jillayne