Collagraphs with Plants and Friends

This week my art friends and I did some playing with simple collagraphs.  We made printing plates where we stuck leaves and other found objects to thin card (mat board) and then sealed the plates with shellac.

We spent a fun day printing the plates intaglio style using my Akua inks and my Xcut machine.

We did some printing with 2 colours, but when dry, the prints can also be handcoloured.

Some of Wendy's plates, ready to print with.

Ngaire printing using the Xcut.
We had to keep adjusting the pressure for the different
thicknesses of the plates, depending on how
much material had been glued to the plate.

Ngaire's plate, revealing her print.

Ngaire's print on eco-dyed paper.
The subtle background colour looked beautiful with the blue ink.
2 of the leaves were glued to the plate vein side up
so their vein patterns were captured in the printing process.

 

Karin's print using a finely woven doily
glued to cardboard and sealed.
It was tricky for her to get the ink even,
but produced an interesting print.

Wendy's banksia collagraph on rusted text paper.

Wendy's 2 colour banksia print.
She inked up the background in blue,
then inked the leaf in black,
carefully wiping back without mixing the
colours too much.

Magpies in my garden.....and in my monoprints

Its always a good thing to challenge oneself.

So, keeping that in mind, last week I decided to create a monochromatic print using multiple plates, keeping the composition simple and minimalistic.  My usual technique is lots of colour on one plate with tons of mark making.   So how did I go?

My theme was one of my favourite - magpies. This time I wanted to tell the story of a magpie hunting for grubs on my back lawn.

The print that I completed consisted of 4 plates - 3 monoprint and 1 drypoint.  I ended up with a series of 2 successful prints and 6 failed prints.  I had many failures due to issues with accurate registration, which detracted from the pleasure of the process but a great learning opportunity as well. The plates moved as I lowered the paper on top, particularly the feather as it wasn't flat.

My plates were:
- Drypoint of a grub
- Monoprinted Magpie stencil
- Ghost monoprint of string (to represent the Magpie's song OR it could be the path of the grub under the ground)
- Monoprint of a feather

Would I do it again?  Hmmmmmm.....   maybe I'll try it where the plates are odd sizes and don't have to line up.   :-)

Making the drypoint plate using acrylic sheet and etching tool

Printing the 4 plates.  The registration sheet is below
the plastic liner on the bed press.

Revealing the print.

Revealing another print.

One of the final prints "Magpie in My Garden".
Can you see the story?