Experiments with AKUA

Emily Looking left: monotype 10x15cm, Akua ink on zinc

Emily On the Stool monotype 10x15cm, Akua ink on zinc

First time back at life drawing for the season.  I arrived having forgotten my elevated drawing board so was stooping over the table. I had packed in ten minutes, throwing in a little of this and little of that.  I grabbed my traveling watercolour set at the last minute.

I had a big long table to myself; this is unusual, so I was able to spread out.  Sue organised Emily into ten minute poses and I decided that would be enough for some monotypes. I had forgotten my roller and I mixed greys with white and black for the first few.  They weren't very strong.  For the third print I decided to see what would happen if I used my watercolours with the AKUA ink. I diluted it with water and blending oil and painted it onto the plate, which I had rubbed release agent onto (leaving the ghost underneath). I mixed ink with watercolour, wiped areas away, used my fingers to dab. Logically it shouldn't have worked, but it did.

For, the final monotype of the day I worked only in black, but my palette was filthy and I seem to have picked up a bit of a pinky tint. By this point I was finding drawing backwards easier and someone in the class  had challenged me to put the whole body in the image.  Initially I wasn't all that interested in the pose, but the more I looked the more I saw.  This was almost a half hour pose and as sometimes happens, I seemed to channel Matisse.