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Wilma Cruise came to David Krut Print Workshop (DKW) this week to create three large-scale monotypes for her upcoming show at David Krut Projects in Johannesburg. She wanted to establish an initial drawing without using the conventional ‘ink and paintbrush’ application. She had previously sourced Caran d’Arche wax crayons in London during a recent visit to the city, and wanted to use them in her monotypes. The crayons come in two formats, water-soluble and oil-based. Printmaker Niall Bingham (who collaborated with Cruise on this project) discovered that the water-soluble version of the crayon could be used to draw directly onto the bed and then printed onto wet cotton rag paper. Cruise was drawn to the idea of using the crayons to create a linear printed mark, before layering ink over the top. During experimentation, Cruise discovered that the crayon could only be printed before the intervention of ink. The surface of the monotype rejected subsequent crayon drawings. This technicality meant that there had to be a sequence to the layering of materials in printing.

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Monotype printmaking characteristically requires very little pressure to transfer the applied ink (on the bed) to the matrix (paper). Cruise began each monotype by drawing onto the perspex surface (of the bed) with the Caran d’Arche crayons. With the help of the press, the wax pigment is forced into the fibres of the paper surface. A greater printing pressure was required to achieve the desired mark, which proved to be an additional challenge for Printmaker Bingham.

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Once these drawn marks were transferred, Cruise resorted to layers of ink applied with a variety of rollers. These layers were printed in separate runs to build up a tonal richness. In some cases, these layers are slightly mis-registered, and overlap one another. In this way, a new colour is created by the inks merging on the paper surface. This was particularly interesting in that both artist and printmaker had little control over the resulting inconsistencies.

The resulting monotypes can be viewed at Cruise’s show at David Krut Projects, opening on 2nd August.

- Niall Bingham and Luke Crossley

Keywords: david-krut-print-workshop, DKW, monotypes, News, print techniques, Print Workshop, Wilma-Cruise