Midnight Monsters (project 4 - part 1)

At the beginning of the trimester I had been working on a project about Nightmares. Specifically the nightmares and fear of going to sleep I experienced as a child. Only the further I got with this project, the less personal it felt. So I paused it.

 Nevertheless the subject matter of nighttime terrors kept creeping back into my mind and into the bigger paintings I made earlier this summer. There was unmistakingly something here that I should explore.  Interestingly my – just for fun – experiment with inky monsters turned out to be the right step towards an actual, new project: Midnight Monsters.

 Midnight Monsters is based on the premises that darkness does not always have to be scary. Sometimes it harbours monsters that turn out to be your friends, if you just let them. So you won’t have to be alone in the dark.

 I wish I’d had a book like this growing up…

After my initial sketchbook work, I tried exploring what kind of imagery would fit with a story such as this. Inspired by the bigger work I made with acrylic paints earlier this summer, I started out painting. Only something didn't feel right.

Though I had my doubts about working with a technique that wouldn’t allow the use of a wide range of colours/tones, I decided to give collography printing a go.

The monsters portrayed have clearly been based on the ink monsters I made earlier this summer. For the image of the bedroom I actually made two different plates. The first one (showed lastly and reused for a chine colle experiment) felt a bit scattered and some of the lines had started to bleed while printing. In the second plate I therefore moved the lefthand wall plus accessories towards the wardrobe and I cut the plate using only a scalpel knife. I found that etching needles - when working on milk cartons - only produce tight lines when used for tiny details such as wardrobe handles. The ink used is Paynes Grey from Akua Intaglio.

To add some more depth and emphasize the darkness of the girl’s bedroom I printed a translucent indigo-like layer of Caligo Safewash on top of the original print. I am quite happy with the result, but I don’t think I am finished quite yet. This calls for more experimentation…