Organic Collagraphs

I am calling these plates 'organic' collagraphs as they have been constructed using dried plant material. The first two, the hydrangeas and leaves, are also on organza glued to matcard. I found the organza very difficult to work with. The first time I tried rubbing the ink on with a piece of material and the second time I tried brushing it on. Neither method worked very well. The dried hydrangeas were quite flat until I tried to stick them to the plate with gel medium and matte medium at which time they decided to plump up, making them thick again. They went through the press just fine but the amount of glue needed to make them stay down then seeps out around the edges making for a sloppy looking print.

The gingko leaves were better but the stems needed a lot of glue to stay flat and the ink didn't stay on the glue resulting in the white edges which looks too messy for me. The corrugated cardboard also had the same effect.

Out of the four attempts I think I will re-work the two gingko ones with oil pastel and see what happens. The other two will get ripped up for collage material.

All being said, I won't try that method again but will attempt making a cast of the fresh flowers and leaves next time in modelling paste or plaster of paris and applying that to the plate, which will also be masonite instead of matcard as it is much sturdier.

Not a wasted effort - nothing ventured, nothing gained!

New Work

After a few weeks of putting my gardens to bed for the upcoming winter months and cutting mats and assembling frames I have started 4 new 13" square collagraph plates. I dried some leaves and flowers from the summer and am experimenting with fixing the dried materials to a matboard base along with corrugated cardboard bits, string, organza and texture using PVA glue. I have run into a few problems - my gingko leaves have some air bubbles underneath which I can't do anything about now but next time I will use PVA glue to fix them instead of heavy gel medium and cover them with wax paper and run it through my press to flatten them out. The other problem area is the hydrangea flowers which, even though dried, are too thick. I am waiting for a large amount of matte medium that I applied to dry and then I will cover them with wax paper and weight them down and then run them through the press to flatten some more.

While waiting for all this to dry I am now going to start 3 more plates in a 6" x 14" size using abstract shapes.

It is windy and raining outside today and somehow that is sparking my creativity! I will post again when all these plates are done and ready to ink up.

Monotype & Collage

I spent some time yesterday working on some monotype prints from a few weeks ago, adding colour and some collage elements. I'm not sure if I like the result so I am posting photos of 3 of them in hopes of getting some feedback.

My next project is trying to collage dried plant material onto a collagraph plate. Again, I'm not sure how this will turn out either. I dried some flowers and leaves this summer from the garden to try this with and now the test comes. I'm hoping that gel medium will stick them down and seal them and then I think if I weight the plate down for a day or so it should flatten enough. I will post again when I have something to show.