developing mono printing

I found a way to have multiple colours on the print, where  would ink up the stencils in one colour and ink the board in another which worked pretty well

But I would still prefer it if the white figures were the faded texture rather than that bold white.

So I came up with a new process which was initially very successful, first:

I ink up the board and just print ink

then I print again using the same board so that I have a background, I then ink the same board again and add the stencils which are inked up in red

This was the first print that came out using this process which I was really pleased with. The stencils have a really nice faded texture and the background is a block colour which is very difficult to achieve with mono printing, it also has the indentations from the stencils. And because it is printed onto the faded background it tones all the colours down a bit. I think this colour scheme works well with the theme too. 

So ideally I would do all my compositions using this process, but after a whole day in the print rooms trying the achieve the same effect, none of the prints turned out as good as this one, which was very frustrating. 

They didn't turn out that bad, but just didn't have the same block background colour I wanted, it was all a bit too faded but I can't work out what I am doing differently. I would ink up the board with lots of ink or with a light layer of ink but they still turned out the same.

But after asking around for advice, some people actually preferred the print that was slightly faded:

Because the faded bit looks like it could be another building in the background, it is more mysterious, and has more depth, whereas the other print is too flat. So I am unsure of how to proceed with these prints, but if I am constantly trying to chase the block colour print I might as well have done screen printing, because thats not what mono printing is about so I should take that into consideration too. But I am pleased with how they developed from the beginning, they are looking a lot more like finished pieces, and I feel like I have come across a lot of problems with mono printing that I have overcome.