Years ago, I did a series of large monoprints using my body as the matrix. This involved inking myself up and then pressing against a sheet of paper. As you can imagine, it gets a little messy but the results can be fantastic. (I even talked my husband into lending me his body for this project...love is a wonderful thing!)
I found this old Polaroid snapshot (cropped for modesty) and couldn't stop laughing ... or remembering how much fun I had rolling in the ink. When I was covered in ink, it almost felt as though I was wearing clothes!
I experimented with water-based inks and acrylic gesso. I would first rub on some body lotion to help with clean up and then apply the printing medium; either directly with a roller or by laying on a surface that I had inked up. Then I would simply press against paper that was either pinned to the wall or laid out on the floor. The black & white prints were left as is or used in print collages and the gesso prints were colored using oil paints and/or pastels.
I decided to revisit this approach but on a smaller scale. Obviously the monoprints were life sized but I wanted to create smaller intaglio works based on this idea. I did some new body prints and photographed the results which allowed me to reduce them in size. (Now, if only it was this easy to "reduce" the actual matrix!!
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