Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Relief printing introductory workshop




Most people think lino or woodblock when they think of relief printing. Both those techniques are a bit time consuming so as an introduction we've taken the quick and simple route: yesterday we did monoprints - ie ink up a flat plate, put a piece of paper on top, and then draw on the back. The pressure from the back picks up the ink onto the paper. As you can see I had a paper doily with me which was good fun to play with as a stencil; and I also quite got into doing moons by rubbing my thumb in a big circle :) Click on the pictures for bigger versions.

Today we did collagraphs, which is essentially making a collage of textured material, then inking it up and printing. Below is my random collage of textured wallpaper, wood veneers, flower sequins and my inked doily from yesterday. All stuck down and then a layer of PVA over the top to seal everything.


Here's the plate inked up and with some bits covered over (like the flat bit behind the flowers) as I wanted a clean print. Sitting waiting to go through the gorgeous old Albion press (that I hurt my arm on trying to pull the lever across!).

And my final print!


Next week - our final print workshop, etching!

5 comments:

Camilla said...

I LOVE your monoprints. So lovely!

sue bulmer said...

Hi Mithi

I used to love doing monoprint and collograph during my foundation. I really like this one, with the lamp and flowers on, and the unique perspective makes it really quirky, it works well.

quirkyartist said...

Very interesting to see what you're doing. I also went to art school after a career in I.T. I did 3 years full time at a technical college (Advanced Diploma) and then two and a half more years at university. I majored in painting & drawing but I also love printmaking. It's interesting to see how and what someone else is doing

Anonymous said...

I'm so glad to see these and read your explanation. I hadn't known about drawing on the back--what a great idea--and I'd never really understood the collagraph thing before. It makes me want to get back to my printing experiments again. It's been a while since I've visited and I'm glad to see you're still progressing through art school. One of these days I'm going to go back to the beginning of your school posts again and study along with them as they're so full of inspiration and cool ideas.

andrea joseph's sketchblog said...

Cool beans. I love this stuff and your blackbirds too.