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Monotype Printmaking with Little Giant Collective (Santa Cruz, CA)

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I am a part of a cooperative printmaking studio based in downtown Santa Cruz, California called Little Giant Collective. We have rotating art exhibitions and participate in our local art walk, First Friday, each month. Along with our exhibitions, we have held free screenprinting events, monthly social sketch nights, a youth writer’s workshop, a craft fair, and operate a retail store-front selling our prints and other handmade goods.

Members of Little Giant Collective from Santa Cruz, California

There are about 16 of us working together as a collective. We are young, full-time working professionals and pour our heart and soul into running LGC. We are still fairly new to our studio space (we celebrated one year in February 2019!) and continue to build it with the support of our vibrant community of artists and mentors.

Since shelter-in-place began, we have stopped our exhibitions and are closed to the public. In an effort to remain connected with our community, we have begun some online programming and are very active on social media. Our monthly drawing night, called Sip ‘n’ Sketch has now become #virtualsipnsketch. We’ve also started a series of virtual artist studio tours called LGC Cribs.

For Print Day in May, I put together this kid-friendly Monotype Printmaking activity for folks at home. The materials listed were common household items like glass from a picture frame or Ziploc bags as plates. Though we used acrylic paint as our ink, I explained the variety of printmaking inks that were typically used for monotype. Our collective believes in making printmaking as accessible as possible. I broadcast the activity live this morning on our Instagram account!


My setup when I broadcast includes a yoga block, a quart mason jar, a car phone clamp and a quick release clamp.
I gave demos of different techniques on the glass sheet and a plastic bag to give people an understanding of the limitations and strengths of both choices. The short open time of the acrylic paint and rigidity of the glass made hand-printing challenging but the lines were a little crisper. The Ziploc bag was able to pick up more subtle drawing techniques and was more responsive to pressure. The biggest deterrent to promoting this as a plastic bag printing activity was to avoid single-use plastic.
I laid down string, yarn, a strawberry leaf, and a clover onto the plate as a resist.
My DIY print drying area with the test prints of various techniques on glass or plastic bag plates.
Some leaves and other texture making materials. Not pictures are some of the mark marking materials I used: a nail, a paper clip, and a matboard chip.
We used old magazines as mixing palettes.
A strawberry leaf, two ways
Mint and black sage leaves from the garden
I was pleasantly surprised by how beautiful this one turned out. I got to explain ghost prints during the livestream.
A self-portrait monotype for Print Day in May 2020!

Thanks for reading! Happy Print Day in May, everyone.

–Louise Leong, Little Giant Collective

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  2. Robynn May 3, 2020

    I’m so grateful that you all participated in such a huge and creative way! I can’t believe we are not working together in other ways, as we Little Giant and Blue Mouse Studios are in the same town! I’d love to harness your PDiM energy for 2021 !!