More Printmaking

 I am enjoying printmaking. More than I ever expected.

I spent a day and a half in the studio this week with Helen. She did an induction to Collagraphy with me on Friday, and I am really excited to see what my plate will result in! I ran out of time for it to dry so will be back next week to ink it up and see what happens.

The base is backing board, and I've used denim, tulle, polystyrene sheet, plastic mesh from a hair rat, cardstock, die-cut card, dried plant material, packing tape, hard plastic mesh, carborundum frit, to build up the image, and also tore up the top layer of the backing board in areas. Then the whole thing was coated with layers of strawhat varnish.

All those materials will either hold the ink, or not. Will be really interesting to see what this looks like when printed. 

I did three different monoprint plates this week as well - ended up with four prints off of two of them, and three off the other. I spent more time playing with adding material to the plates, and mixing and rolling out the inks this time. Also used the extender with the inks, and I love how it makes the ink flow and adds a vibrancy to the prints - also dries a heck of a lot faster!

I've still got eight prints from two weeks ago that STILL haven't completely dried. The ink was a bit thick. This week I made sure to not be so heavy handed in the application.

When I brought my last batch of prints home, and still had wet ones, I went and bought a pack of radiator drying racks. I needed somewhere to put my prints to dry - and as I work on things at home too, laying them all over the place isn't convenient. Have to say it was a brilliant idea.

One is on the radiator in front of my worktable so no chance of bumping it and the other is hanging off my shelf (Ikea, Kallax with accessories...love it!) also completely out of range of getting bumped.

I found out from Helen that the heat from the radiators will actually cause the ink to take longer to cure as it will keep them in a liquid-ish form. I just don't have an alternative spot for the second rack. So I rotate the prints around - put the drier ones on the heated rack. I'm not in a huge rush so work with what is dry.

Here are the prints produced this week:

First is using several sprigs of bamboo I collected on the morning dog walks. I prepared the plate with a metal spatula, then scraped off excess ink, blotted it with newsprint, then inked the bamboo with a roller and laid it down.  I was a bit heavy handed coating the bamboo as I had hoped for a more subtle impression, but this is all a learning curve.  On each of the ghost prints I moved and flipped the bamboo over, and it is obvious I used a lot more ink than needed! These were done on wet watercolour 300gsm smooth paper.

Next is on dry A4 mixed media paper with a slight texture. I really like the effect the rougher paper gave me. I mixed Prussian blue with black, and roughly rolled in white, then scraped the white around with a palette knife. I rolled straight black along the "horizon" and laid inked pieces of pampas grass along that - going for a marshland effect. Added a blob of white in the "water" for a moon reflection, and then, before pressing it I dropped some water across the sky and water and blotted lightly. I wanted to see how it would work and it did what I had hoped it would and diffused the ink giving it a watercolour sort of look. I moved the grass around and flipped over for the ghost prints.

For me, the first ghost print (second here) is my favourite.

Next is on the wet watercolour paper again. With this one I used the extender in the red and yellow inks and really love the application and intensity of the colours. I used a die-cut circle for the sun, which I  lifted and applied red to for the third and fourth prints. I used seed heads that I picked, again, on the morning dog walks. I rolled ink onto them, and as with the bamboo, think I was a little too heavy handed in parts as I got some smearing in the first press. I was trying to get all the parts of the plant inked - but I think it might have helped to have used the extender in the black before I applied it to prevent the blobbing. I moved and flipped the seedheads for each print.

I really love those seedheads (I used some in the collagraph print too). I'm going to pick a bunch more this weekend to dry, as if I don't get them now I may have to wait until the end of the year to get more! I couldn't get at them these last couple of days because the land was flooded by the morning hightides.