Evolution of an image: 12 small monotypes

I was in the print lab by myself yesterday. It's nice to be able to work uninterrupted!
It's the dry summer season (As opposed to the monsoon, which is around the corner) here and that means lots of people go out of town and Monday is not an official teaching day. I have been playing with the new process I learned in Santa Fe and it's not quite natural to me yet. I'm not quite to the point where it's really comfortable, but I'm starting to get there.

I started by making two very mediocre monotypes (sorry, you can't see them!), both about 9x12". Everything seemed wrong with them- the colors, the drawing, the layers, everything. Mmmmmmmm. Should I keep going or quit for the day?  Maybe I just need to pare down, simplify and go small and keep the color palette tight.

So I went back to the smaller size I was working with last week: 4x5". I already had a palette of colors out, some of which were resonating with me, some not. I started with a PETG plate and added a piece of my solarplate printed chine colle'. I had some more small sample pieces of Japanese papers and tried printing on each type of paper last week, so all of the chine colle' bits were very small but perfect for these small plates.
The first image started to look promising. Not bad....not sure what I'm doing. The second monotype was OK, and I started to see something there...something familiar.

By print #3, I was starting to get more excited about these tiny prints. Even the colors were starting to look OK.

Image #3 (Copyright 2013 of course!). The
chine colle' bit is on the "face" of the head. 

It looked like a head. Part of a figure. Or someone wearing a mask or helmet. Or maybe an alien head or a cave drawing. Or a cave drawing of an alien head. Maybe I'm channeling Erich von Däniken.

So I decided to go with the flow and keep going with the same idea....just run with it. 

By the end of the day I had a dozen of these little blue heads. Totally unexpected. Often, going with what you see emerging from an art process can be much more rewarding that trying to make your image "fit" your plans for the day. Sometimes throwing out your plans can yield great results. 

Next time you get stuck in your art, throw out your plans and play.

12 monotypes with chine colle' created 6-24-13.
Numbered to show the order they were created 

Until next time,
~Reb