Circular Reasoning

Creating abstract images with a printing press allows considerable flexibility. Printer’s inks and brayers are the tools chosen to create abstract images using a printing press to facilitate transfer of ink to paper. Brayers, which resemble a “rolling pin”, have a surface which can both hold and release ink for transfer to a medium that can, in turn, transfer the ink to paper, creating a print. For the background of this image, a brayer coated with green ink was lightly rolled over the surface of commercial paper embossed with circles. Light pressure was used so as to allow only the embossed areas picked up ink. The inked paper was turned face-down on a stiff plate (in this case Plexiglas) and rolled over with a clean brayer to transfer the ink. the embossed paper was removed, leaving behind ink from the embossed images. Gestural swatches of color were also added to the plate using brayers “loaded” with varying colors of ink. When the composition was completed, all inks on the plate were simultaneously transferred to a single sheet of dampened print paper via the roller of a printing press. The one-of-a-kind print that emerges is referred to as a monotype, and designated 1/1 which signifies that it is a unique image.

Sometimes, the artist may choose to pass the same plate through the press with a clean, dampened sheet of print paper. This faint image, consisting of only residual ink and therefore lighter than the original, is referred to as a “ghost”.

To create a series of similar images, fresh inks from the same palette may be designed and transferred to paper. In this case too, each monotype would be designated 1/1.