Making Acrylic Monoprints

copyright 2010 Jan Blencowe

Red Tree, monoprint, 5x7

Today was such a fun day in the studio! I spent the afternoon making monoprints. Not sure what a monoprint is? Well I am so glad you asked!

A monoprint is an original artwork. The printmaking process involved in making a monoprint is named such because only one print is made at a time, each print is unique and multiple prints are not possible. The process involves painting on or inking a non-porous surface such as an etching plate, glass, Plexiglas, or the like, and then pressing (and rubbing) the paper against the painted or inked surface resulting in unique works on paper.

copyrigth 2010, Jan Blencowe

Emerging, monoprint, 5x7

So essentially a monoprint is a printed painting. Why would you print your painting? One of the great advantages of monoprints is the spontaneous movements of the paint during the process of pressing and rubbing the paper to transfer the image. Unexpected and delightful things often happen. Sometimes not, but that's the way it goes with this type of work.

I like to work on a medium size sheet of paper perhaps 11x14 or 16x20 and then use a mat to compose smaller sections and cut the paper up and mat and frame those smaller compositions.

copyright 2010 Jan Blencowe

Bamboo Garden, monoprint, 5x7

For these three I've used some cold pressed watercolor paper and Chroma Interactive acrylics.  I sealed the paper first with Chroma Binder medium which ensures good paint adhesion.

If you coat paper with gum arabic you can make monoprints with watercolors, and if you seal your paper with gesso or an acrylic matte medium you can also use oil paints. If you heat a cookie sheet on a low temperature (approx 200 degrees F) or use and electric hot plate on low you can draw with oil pastels and lay sealed paper over them, press/rub and make a monoprint that way too.

Lots of options and lots of fun. If anyone has other ways to create monoprints please share them in the comments section!

Sketching Spring Crocus en plein air

Just a short video of my afternoon sketching the first crocus of spring. Plein air painting season is just around the corner! Yay! So far the most interesting thing out there are the snow crocus so they get a page in my sketchbook.

You might like to visit my Plein Air Painting Resource Page in anticipation of getting out there!

Crocus Sketch, copyright 2010 Jan Blencowe

Here's a little plein air crocus painting from a few years ago that has gone to a collector.

See you tomorrow !

Celebrating Women Artists on International Women's Day

copyright 2010, Jan Blencowe

She Guards the Seas, 8x16, acrylic

Today is International Women's Day. In celebration I offer you AskArt's list of 109 Notable American Women Artists along with the full article that gives brief biopgraphies of each artist.

It's likely that beyond Mary Cassatt, Grandma Moses, Louis Nevelson, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Helen Frankenthaler you're not going to recognize too many names.

So where are all the famous women artists? Shelley Esaak offers some down to earth insights in her article at About.com and she offers some sage advice:

We can't do anything about the past. My advice to you, today, is:

Create art.

Support women artists. Women who are alive and struggling, not the long-gone ones we hold up as examples.


Help each other. Strength in numbers, Ladies.


Make the right choices for you. If you burn to create art, it's OK not to raise a family. If you want to raise a family and make art, marry wisely, learn how to be really patient and surround yourselves with like-minded friends who'll co-op with you occasionally.


If you have never seen this video of Women in Art before you're in for a treat! If you have seen it you know it's worth watching again. Enjoy!

Morning Mist, a luminist landscape by Jan Blencowe

copyright 2010, Jan Blencowe

Morning Mist, 24x30, acrylic on linen

View this painting in a sample frame on my website

It took such a long time to get this painting working. It just goes to show that advanced planning (which I did) only takes you so far and then as Picasso said you have to "follow the paint".

It's been my goal this year to work more slowly and to be open to lots of experimentation and taking chances in my work even if that mean risking a painting. It's scary but ultimately worth it.

I am now 5 painting into my series of 20, 1/4 of the way in. I'm feeling like it's time to take a bit of a break and turn my creative energies elsewhere for a little while so that this larger series will remain fresh.

I am thinking of switching mediums for a few pieces and working in pastel, encaustic if I find some space to bring out all my equipment and I'm also brewing up a series of three abstract paintings on 20x20 square gallery wrap canvas.


Some spring cleaning is needed in my house and studio along with the dreaded taxes.  But I am looking forward to de-cluttering my environment and my mind so that I can be free to create and experiment.

Plein Air Exhibit at the Yale Peabody Museum

I had a wondeful surprise when I was at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven, CT last Sunday. View the video on YouTube if you're receiving The Poetic Landscape via e-mail.

I was delighted to find an excellent exhibit of plein air paintings by James Perry Wilson, creator of some of the most impressive dioramas at the Peabody Museum and at the American Museum of Natural History. The entire exhibit Invisible Art is quite fascinating.

Working on a curved concave wall (yes, I misspoke in the video! Sorry!) Wilson, who was also a designer and draftsman for the architectural firm Bertram Goodhue devised a grid "system of 'unsquare squares' which change size according to how far the background wall was along its curve from the normal viewing point in front of the diorama. Wilson's grid system insures that all objects will appear in proper scale across the background, transmitting the feeling of 'rightness' that is his trademark" ~from Invisible Art:The dioramas at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, which you can purchase at the Peabody Museum gift shop.

Wilson used panoramic photographs but also painted sketches and fully developed paintings en plein air because in his words.."... you can't rely on photographs, even the best color film, to record the color exactly as the eye sees it. Color film tends to increase contrast. So I use my field paintings as an overall check."

Wilson'e greatest diorama achievement and my personal favorite at the museum is the Coastal Region diorama. 

Since I wandered into the exhibit at the end of the day after sketching in the museum all afternoon I didn't have as much time as I would have liked to really enjoy the exhibit so I'll be going back to take a closer look.

If you're near New Haven, CT the Peabody is always great fun to visit, and this plein air exhibit makes it extra special  right now.

A New Landscape - Waterways, a view of the marsh by Jan Blencowe

Waterways, acrylic on linen,24x30

copyright 2010 Jan Blencowe

It took a long time but I finally finished this piece! I needed about a week away from it before I knew how to pull the whole thing together.

I have another that's pretty much done, but it is a dark painting overall and the light outside hasn't been bright enough to get a good photo that captures the subtle reflections in the pond. When the photo is too dark it ends up looking like grass! So a post of that one will have to wait.

Another Day of Sketch Crawlin' at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History

I just love the concept of sketch crawl so much that I decided to extend it for another day! Today I went to the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven, CT. I've sketched there before and find the wide ranging collection offers such unusual and exoctic objects that I could spend hours there sketching.

Join me via video for some sketch crawl fun!

Here are the sketches I came home with. I started in the Egyptian room...

The wooden statue is from the First Intermediate Period, 2181-2040 BC drawn in Russett, Graphitint pencil & water washes.  The pottrery is from the Pre-Dynastic period 3400-3100 BC and is drawn in Koh-i-noor sepia pen.

Here we have an Osiride Head from the Late Period, 664-525 BC and another piece of Pre-Dynastic Pottery 3400-3100 BC

Then I moved on to the magnificant birds of prey......

The two large birds are Goshawks and the small bird havin' a bad hair day is a kingfisher.

Towards the end of my visit I came across a fabulous exhibit of plein air painitngs, I'll have video and a blog post about that tomorrow!

The First Sketch Crawl of 2010

Today was the 27th WorldWide Sketch Crawl! I didn't organize a group this time, as the weather is so cold and unpredictable in February, but I did go out by myself to sketch.

Basically a sketch crawl is about getting out and sketching alone or in a group, at various locations through out the day. They're really a lot of fun especially in nice weather, with a bunch of sketching obsessed friends!

You can learn more at http://www.sketchcrawl.com/

I took some video so you can see what I do when it's too cold to sit outside and sketch. Part 1 Part 2

Here my three sketches:

Tools for Creating Texture, working on the new Landscape Painting

As I have been for a while now I'm still experimenting and exploring ways to create complex textural paint surface with the acrylic paint. There are tons of additives for acrylics everything form glass beads to black lava! Just look at everything Liquitex offers to create texture.

Many of these unusual textrues are difficult to incorporate into a more traditional painting. One of the downsides is that it makes it diffucult to change and area. Once the textured paint is down and dried it would be difficult to change the shapef the area  or create a smooth area in its place.

However, I've learned that it is often better in a traditional painting to add the textured paint at the end of the painting as the final layer when you know that no radical changes will be made.

I haven't really explored these textured gels, staying mostly with soft gel, and W&N Impasto Gel. The rest of my texture is created with more traditional tools, cheap hardware store brushes, paper towels, plastic wrap, sponges, and a palette knife. Oh and fingers too! But I think there will come a time in the not too distant future when I will begin exploring them

Today's video is a progress update on my newest painting and discusses creating texture, sgraffito and the challenges of painitng that large foreground water.

The Bare Naked Beginnings of a Landscape Painting

I've just begun painting #5 in my series. When this one is done I'll be finished with the first quarter of the series.  But there is still a long way to go in this new piece.

Here's the reference photo and a version I marked up in photo shop to identify the large shapes in the composition.

My focus is on the reduction and simplification of the landscape elements, earth, sky and water.

Today's video goes into a further explanation of the painting and the process.