Printmaking 2

The first task of the day was to make a plate for a collograph. We'll be inking them up in two ways, intaglio and relief - as in this example - I used the drawings from the National Gallery last week. On the plate, the yellow is a sandpaper which, having a lot of texture, should print very dark. Also, the eyes are dabs of pva glue with carborundum mixed in - again, lots of fine texture so it should be nice and dark. The silver area is tinfoil, and the white is modelling paste, which I've tried to keep smooth for the faces so it prints white with dark lines (incised); the other white areas have a texture pressed in and like the tinfoil should be some sort of grey. It'll be a surprise.

More experiments in collography - various things in the top, dribbled glue in the middle, and glue with carborundum, as well as knife cuts (my "rain" theme again) at the bottom. Again, we'll have to wait and see what happens with these. We varnished the plates and will print next week.

In the afternoon, we moved on to do some trace monoprinting. (Newspapers are very important for printmaking. It's a messy business. Lots of cleanup.) Note the proper printing roller. These need to be looked after - they cost £130.New to me was using solvent in monoprints - twisting the cloth when wiping the plate made these "roses" but unfortunately they didn't transfer to paper as nicely as they looked on the plate.

There's scope for adding some more definitive lines on that. I love the particular mark that monoprints make. And - it can be done at home without a press!