At our last group crit, it was suggested that I consider experimenting with blood instead of ink or paint with my mono printing, since I was not able to convey the underlying gruesomeness of the myth, The Mead of Poetry. Since the wetness and sloppiness of the concept was what led me to mono printing in the first place, I decided to give it a try.
After visiting several family butchers around Edinburgh, I discovered that in order to sell blood in the UK, a butcher must go through several governmental inspections and red tape, which most of them are not willing to do. None of the ones I tried were, anyway. The last one did, however, mention that I might be able to find dried blood and, after a quick internet search, I did, from W. Weschenfelder and Sons Sausage Making Supplies. I ordered a kilogram of dried pigs blood and a few days later it arrived.
After trying various experiments, I ended up using acrylic gloss medium mixed with acrylic gel medium to give it body, which was combined with a mixture of dried blood and water. This gave me a media very much the consistency of frosting, which I spread on my glass and then applied the paper. This results in a different effect than the paint I used previously, rendering an interesting pattern of fractal like shapes when the paper is removed.
I am still experimenting both with the media and with the paper, to determine what is the most desirable effect, so I will probably be posting more on this later.