Weekend Prints

I spent the weekend near Cheltenham on a Collagraph making course run by Sue Brown, who has been my printmaking mentor for the last couple of years. She's very inventive, creative, supportive and encouraging - and I always come away from working with her with a bad case of sketchbook envy. Her work is so free and spontaneous as opposed to my detailed doodling!
Anyway, the initial two plates we made were supposed to be printed one over the other. They were just quick plates, one of which was using carbroundum grit to achieve deeper tones. I printed this plate again on its own using an azure lake and black inking followed by viscosity inking with white and then cadmium yellow deep. I really liked the result - it looks a lot better in the flesh - and then decided to add more carbroundum in places and ink up again....

This is the result. Not quite what I expected but I'm not unhappy with this one either. The cadmium yellow deep is almost rusty red and I love that rusty/blue colourway to bits.

I made four plates in total including a carborundum plate as part of my group work project. I think my beetle is a bit too dark and I may have been a bit heavy handed with the wood glue glaze but that's what I love so much about the process. There are so many variables that it is impossible to get things exactly the same twice and it can always be improved upon.

The plates, once made, are sealed with shellac which gives them a wonderful patina. Sue showed us some great books made with Japanese stab bindings and using cut up collagraph plates as the covers. Fabulous - and I have a lot of old plates! Guess what I'm doing later today......