Draw the outlines of the face lightly with a fine camel’s-hair brush, and lay in the shadows broadly with a large brush; then take your pad and go over the shadows, stippling them with little dabs until they are smooth and free from brush strokes. When it is necessary to deepen a shadow add more paint with the pad.
Do not put in the features with hard lines, let the face be modelled with light and shade, making deeper accents where more sharpness is required. The definite strokes about the eyes, the nostrils, and the line between the lips can be made with a brush without hardness. Hard lines never look well in a monotype; they stand out harshly from the general softness of the effect, and appear unpleasantly out of place.
The Printing
When your painting is finished, slightly dampen a piece of paper by passing a wet sponge across one side, lay the dampened side carefully on the glass next to the paint, and then pass both through the clothes-wringer. Remember to hold the glass as it comes through that it may not fall and break. Lift your paper off lightly and quickly, without dragging, and you have the completed monotype, like, and yet unlike, the picture you painted. In the first place, the design is reversed, and then there are often beautiful effects which your brush could never have produced. If the painting on the glass still holds, try another print, and even a third; the first are not always the best.
The Turbulent Sea.
Printed on Imported Blotting-paper.
Study of a Head.
Printed on Imported Blotting-paper.
Study of a Head.
Printed on Imported Blotting-paper.