Urban Dreams – Original Monotype Prints

Welcome to my new work! I am calling the series, “Urban Dreams”. These are handmade, one-of-a-kind originals. At this time, I am only selling fine art reproduction prints of these images to keep the originals for an exhibit. I have them available at 11″x14″ and 16″x20″. Contact me if you are interested and we can arrange online payment (and I provide free shipping). These are also available as prints and on panel at Sidestreet Arts in Portland, and few are available for purchase online >>. If you have a very strong desire to eventually collect an original, please contact me and we can make a mutually agreeable arrangement so I can still have it available for an exhibit.

Also, I have a spin off series called “Urban Messages” and these are available as reproduction prints in many sizes. They can be viewed and purchased at my online store >>

This all started with me wanting to get back into printmaking and just play and some inspiration from a commission project I did in 2019. The process is key in all this. The reduced B&W photographic imagery is from my own catalog of shots captured over the last 10 years during my travels and photowalks. These photographs were taken in Portland, Eastern Oregon, Seattle, Oakland, San Francisco, Boston, Brooklyn, NYC, Colorado, Rawlins (WY), Atomic City (ID), from road trips, and the list goes on. I pick images I love while randomly scrolling through my photo catalog. Then I reduce the image to B&W outlines, print them onto Japanese paper, then go into my printmaking studio to create the colors and the composite image by hand using a monotype process and a technique called chine collé. The whole process is completely opposite from my regular photomontage work. This new work is done more at random, unplanned, using intuition, more play, less representational, less agenda, and more spontaneous. It’s made with random object combinations that would be fun and work loosely together, and I let the ink and color flow with however I feel that day. The less I plan, and the more I just experiment and play, the more I like the final images. When I tried to calculate and plan a composition more, the final piece would lose a spark somehow. What I love about printmaking and the monotype process is, you really don’t know how it will look until after it has been run through the printing press. It is a surprise. With my digital photomontage work, I can plan it, rework it, and make endless iterations, and always go back to a previous state…there is more control. All that is out the window here, which is a change in pace I needed…to just play, not plan, and not overwork. The impetus to do this work was to just play and create for fun and to loosen up my process both in art and in life in general.