Hi. My name is Judy Watson.
I’m a descendant of Waanyi people.
Also known as running water people,
from North West Queensland.
I live in Brisbane and make art.
Today I’m going to show you how to make
bush brushes and monoprints.
We’re going to get started by going
down into the garden to gather materials.
Let’s go.
So we went to the garden and
just collected lots of things, I found this one as well
from the garden, nice root structure will be perfect.
And I just want to talk about how you don’t have to use
normal brushes. You can also use bush brushes.
So in this case, we’ll just be using these sorts of
features, textural features, to make marks on the paper.
And to do that I’m just going to put some ink,
black ink, into a container.
But you could use just poster paint, would be good,
mixed up with water so that it’s non-toxic,
and then use that to draw or paint with.
And we’ll just see what it looks like
with some of those bush brushes.
Okay, that’s perfect.
Beautiful.
Oh beautiful. See how I’m whipping it around?
Moving my wrist as I go.
I really like that one too.
I like the skittery line that this one does.
Fantastic for mark-making.
Beautiful, from the garden to the studio.
So that’s bush brushes.
Now this is a very, very old paint
which I’ve just grabbed from the back of the studio.
This is just a foam roller. You don’t have to use that,
you could use just a paint brush
but let’s just see how it goes.
Alright. Seems to be okay.
This was that beautiful fern. Let’s see how that goes.
And then I’ll turn it around the other way.
So you could just use a paint brush to do this as well.
Okay, so we’ve got the paint on here.
And then we’re going to put it on.
Think about where you want it in terms of composition.
And place this on top.
I’m going to register it, as in trying to get it to line up.
So just put those two edges together.
Bring it down.
Now there’s a number of ways I could press this in.
I can use a hard roller.
You could also use a rolling-pin like this.
You could also just use your hands
and your finger pressure.
You can also take this and
you can walk over it and apply pressure to it.
Oh beautiful.
So that’s your monoprint.
Sometimes you’ll find the back of the plant is better.
So that’s a very easy way of applying
and printing, doing what’s called a monoprint.
This was a green plant,
so that will hold ink in quite a different way
and be much more flexible
than a dry old plant.
You can use bush brushes, anything that you find.
And you can use materials that you pick up
as you go for a walk,
and you can make beautiful work with it.
It’s really up to you
and your vision of what you want your art to be.