Collagraphs - part 2

Thursday saw me back at Primrose Park for the second day of the Collagraph workshop run by Primrose PaperArts.  In a previous post I had blogged about how we were guided by Chris Hutch to create our collagraph plates.  On Thursday we got the chance to try intaglio printing with them.
Chris, in the interim, had shellacked our plates expertly. (I found the full benefit of this later as I rubbed my plates excessively to in the inking up stage and not one bit of the "texture creating debris" I had stuck on the plate came off, wonderful).

My plates sealed with layers of shellac

In the beginning we had a go at embossing paper with one of our small plates without ink. I forgot to photograph my sample, probably because it didn't exactly appeal to me - the relief on my plate was probably too low and indistinct.  Chris demonstrated with a plate featuring a bolder motif from an old lace tablecloth and the resulting embossing was clearer.

On to the inking, firstly choosing only black on one of our small plates. My first effort was too dark having left too much ink on the plate; the second too pale due I suspect to the paper drying out too quickly (it was that 37 degree day if you remember in Sydney).  But gradually I got the idea vaguely and some useful prints were produced.
Despite the heat we were all enthused and very busy.

Jan inking her plate

Lydia providing inking tips

Kate excercising her muscles at the wheel

My most successful prints were done using a black or indigo ink as intaglio colour, then a second sable or ochre rolling onto the high relief areas of the plate before printing.

Even after all this messing about the plates themselves were great in their own right-

I had a great time and found that it's definitely a technique I would try again in the future. Thanks again, Chris. I could just see myself stitching into these prints.
 However I also discovered the mess that is ink and now understand the angst my purist printmaker daughter goes through in keeping her work ultra clean and accurately registered.  I don't know think I'll be following her to that extreme, my nerves couldn't take it!

Collagraphs

I've been chained to my sewing machine so much recently, preparing pieces for an exhibition, Exquisite Touch at Craft NSW Gallery in Sydney that it was great to take a break on Saturday and do something completely different.  The exhibition incidentally opens on Tuesday 17 Sept 6-8pm, but more on that in the next post.

Back to Saturday - I went to a great workshop on making collagraphs, held by Primrose PaperArts in Sydney. This was the first of 2 days: the first day would be spent preparing the plates, the second printing with them.  I have a couple of books on the subject which detail the process involved and give design ideas, but nothing beats being tutored in person by an expert.  We were taught by Chris Hutch, a member of the group and an obviously experienced printer of beautiful collagraphs, who was so generous in her supplies and tuition.

Her own collagraph plates were artworks in themselves, let alone her prints.

This one features various fibres, gesso and glue

Various areas of the mountboard has been cut back to give darker areas once printed, and features surface texture with glue, mediums and carbundum

After seeing all this wonderful inspiration we made a start on creating our own, starting with mountboard like Chris. The following are my attempts of simple boards trying to use the demonstrated techniques.  I went with the more organic designs, looking to my A5 sketchbook from Module 1 dip work for ideas.  I had studied bottle trees quite closely at the time in various forms so I traced one of my drawings onto the board, and cut back a little to create relief.

A5 boards

 The board (above left) then had additional threads, kozo fibre, carbundum and crushed egg shell all set in PVA.  The one on the right has similar fibres and sandpaper strips set in manipulated gesso to build up a surface.

 This A5 board above has scrim and muslin in the background with pressed leaves and moulded leaf impressions.

This last board above was about A4 size and featured the bottle tree again in a little more elaborate cut back form with strips of mesh and embossed handmade paper (from certificate module, yes I keep everything).

That all took most of the day, so Chris so kindly took them home with her to dry properly and then seal them all with shellac for us so that they would be ready to print with next time - can't wait. But i'll have to, until 10 October. I'm more used to monoprinting of course, which is immediate in its results, so the time and thought involved in developing collagraphs is totally different.  My boards didn't really look like much for now, but I'm hopefully they'll turn out ok and it will be fun playing with them in a few weeks - watch this space.