Monotype

Monotype is a printmaking technique that produces a single, unique impression rather than a numbered edition, in which an image is painted or drawn directly onto a smooth, unetched printing plate, most often glass or metal, using printing ink, and the wet image is then transferred to paper by hand-rubbing or running the plate and paper through a press, after which little to no image remains on the plate for a second pulling. Practiced since the seventeenth century and closely associated with painters including Edgar Degas, who produced hundreds of monotypes exploring the technique's direct, painterly qualities, monotype sits between painting and printmaking, valued precisely because, unlike other print techniques, each result is a one-of-a-kind image.