Umana
1/3 Varied Edition
Acrylic gel-press monoprint. 7 x 5 in. 2025.

One of the nice things about being part of the Palm Springs Desert Art Center is the opportunity to meet other desert artists. I was struck by Jerry Harty’s whimsical but technically very tight prints, collages, and glassworks from the first DAC show I took part in and immediately felt I had much to learn from him. Therefore, when I saw he was doing a gel press workshop in May I did not hesitate.

I don’t do workshops very often. I tend to lose interest rapidly and wander off, frankly. But this was not the case with Jerry’s. He has been teaching for many years and was admirably prepared and organized, with clear and achievable goals. This made the learning experience free of distracting fuss over materials and confusion over methods while the atmosphere remained relaxed and creative.

One of the techniques Jerry shared with us was printing on the gel plate with a matrix of corrugated cardboard. This involves essentially carving into the face of the cardboard, removing different layers to get different effects. For example, in “Umana” the striped areas appear where only the top surface paper of the cardboard was removed, while the solid shapes result from carving all the way down to the bottom surface of the cardboard. In this case we also made small dots by piercing with an awl.

Once the carving was complete, the gel press was coated with a layer of black acrylic paint, then the cardboard was pressed into it and pulled off. This removed the black paint from anywhere that had not been carved. At that point I added some dots on the plate with a blue Posca pen, then used a brayer to roll on some fairly random touches of raw umber. Finally, the design was pulled off the press and onto the paper with a coat of Golden OPEN titan buff. Among many valuable things I learned from Jerry, using slow-drying Golden OPEN paints to pull prints was one of the best! Unlike ordinary acrylic paints, Golden OPEN is formulated to remain workable much longer, which gives time for the paint to penetrate all the layers on the plate and adhere them fully to the paper.

My printing technique has really, really improved as a result of what I learned in this workshop. Thank you Jerry!

I pulled two more prints with the same piece of cardboard, one in the class and one after I got back to my studio. The clarity of the design tends to deteriorate with each pull, as the surface of the cardboard breaks down and more noise ends up on the print. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, depending on what you’re going after.

Here’s the second pull. You can see the increased static, especially along the left side. You can also see I went a really different direction with the color!

Umana
2/3 Varied Edition
Acrylic gel-press monoprint. 7 x 5 in. 2025.

Finally, in the last pull you really begin to see the breakdown of the edges of the design and especially the disappearance of a lot of the black dots I’d made with the awl. Because of the darker background, instead of the blue I made additional dots with a white Posca pen this time.

Umana
3/3 Varied Edition
Acrylic gel-press monoprint. 7 x 5 in. 2025.

I’m glad I chose this abstract design which could support a degree of roughness in appearance, as I was focused on learning and did not want to be stressing over details in the classroom situation. Luckily, I like the primitive woodcut-y result!

All three of these small Umana monoprints and others that benefited from my experience at Jerry’s workshop will be for sale at my studio in October during the Highway 62 Open Studio Art Tours.

Read more posts on the Magicgroove blog —>