Some experiments with collagraphs

I've been playig around with pressed plant material from the garden to create some collagraph prints...

Coot collagraph

A couple of prints from a small collagraph plate, with added watercolour, based on a picture I took at a local nature reserve. I do enjoy the slight variation that comes with printmaking (my printmaking anyway!)

Yorkshire dales collagraph prints

A couple of months back I did a printmaking workshop with Sherry Rea, and following on from that she very generously offered the workshop group a day of open access in her studio. So we reconvened a few weeks later and got printmaking again!

I decided to try another collagraph, this time a landscape inspired by my wonderful week in the Yorkshire Dales earlier in the year. I pulled several prints from the same plate, trying out different colours, different amounts of wiping/leaving ink on the plate, etc. I was really please with the results - my landscape efforts thus far in other media have been somewhat disappointing!

So, here they are...

 I need to pick a favourite to get framed, but I don't know which one I like best!

And here's the collagraph plate...

Collagraphs!

A couple of weeks back I went to a most excellent collagraph workshop, run by printmaker Sherry Rea who, rather conveniently, lives in a village just up the road from me. The five of us who attended all enjoyed the workshop immensely!  Here are some of the prints I came away with (the sheepy one inspired by my holiday in the Yorkshire Dales!)

Curwen workshops - collagraphs

I had a fab three days last week at the Curwen Print Study Centre, near Cambridge UK. Tuesday was collagraphs, Wednesday was drypoint, and Friday was linocut. I would have done the whole week (monopronts and woodcuts) if the two other days hadn’t been fully booked!

So, Tuesday – collagraphs. As you need a press for this technique, and I (sadly) don’t have one, this was completely new to me. Using a piece of mount board as a base, I stuck various items on (using PVA glue), and also cut into the surface of the mount board in some places. The things you can use are without limit – anything that has texture is fair game! The only thing to remember is that your overall plate (mount board plus stuck-on bits) shouldn’t end up being too thick (from thinnest point to thickest point), as you’ll have problems printing the ink evenly. When you’re happy with your plate, let the glue dry and then apply a couple of thin layers of varnish to seal it.

We then inked up intaglio – we scumbled the ink into the grooves and recesses of the surface, then wiped the plate using scrim (a kind of open mesh material). This leaves the relief parts free of ink and the recesses inked up. Then to the press – plate on press, damp paper on plate, packing paper on top of that, then ‘heave ho’ on the press! The paper needs to be slightly damp so the fibres get properly pressed into the recesses of your plate. Result:

Next step was to roll over the plate – using a roller you apply ink to the relief parts of the plate. The plate still has ink on it from the intaglio stage, so when it goes in the press both intaglio and relief area print:

 

As you can (hopefully) see, I did figurative subjects (cat, landscape), but some of the others produced some fabulous abstract prints. The scope is endless, so much you can do with textures and colour!