What is monoprinting?
Original and affordable art
Don’t you just love to add some character to your interior? We value unique, handmade and affordable interior items. Collecting special treasures to decorate walls is such a great way to make your house a home.
However, original and handmade art can feel out of your reach. Or art prints can be affordable, but mass-produced and just too impersonal. We wanted to come up with a solution to this and create wall art that is both handmade, original and accessible. That’s why we designed a special monoprinting technique.
Mono is one
Mono means “one”, indicating that a monoprinting technique does not allow exact reprints. Even if we wanted to, it is impossible for us to make two identical prints. Maybe you are familiar with the silkscreen printmaking process or techniques like lino printing. These are wonderful printing techniques that are mostly used to produce work in identical series or editions. Monoprinting differs from them because the final result is always unique. Each print has an edition of 1.
How we work
An Enkel Art Studio print is built up out of different layers of acrylic paint. Some thick with a high coverage, some thin and transparent. We work on several prints at the same time. During the process we decide which print needs another layer. Not only the two of us get to decide how a layer turns out. Our printing plate also has a mind of its own! We have a third team player that makes sure every print has a distinct character.
Letting go of control
We can only control part of our making process. What an actual printed layer will look like is often unknown to us! We are addicted to the anticipation of pressing paper to the plate, knowing that when we peel the paper off a surprise will be waiting. It is similar to the flow our daughters are in when they are in their play zone. Working in the here and now. We gladly let go of the control and can’t wait to see each special effect that wants to be revealed.
The “Enkel” effect
Enkel means 'only’ or ‘single' in Dutch. Our making process with acrylic paint, paper and a self developed printing press surprises us each time again! Every artwork is a one-off original. The Enkel effect is created by a special printing technique that does not allow exact repeat prints. We love to play with shapes and colours, make each print by hand and give it a personal touch and feel. On the artwork you might even find a spontaneous fingerprint or a splash of paint.
