Art printing is such a huge subject. Where do you start?

The book I have just been reading, Drawn to Stitch: Line, drawing and mark-making in textile art, by Gwen Hedley, a book for fabric artists, has a large section on printing. You find printing everywhere.

A very interesting area of printing is doing collagraphs. Big name! It just means collage print. Colla - collage, graph/graphic - print or mark.

I went to a wonderful workshop recently designed to encourage artists to make collagraph blocks (mainly on mdf) and then use them to print and overprint to make layered work.

We made several blocks all the same size, and cut the paper the same size as the blocks so it would be easy to register and overprint.

I made so many blocks that I didn't get around to printing all of them. I did experiment with overprinting, however, and will do more.

Our tutor, Charlie, was American and brought some very nice American intaglio inks with him (www.danielsmith.com).

The pictures are of some of the printing blocks and some of the prints.
The first one is a print from a carborundum block. PVA glue is painted on the mdf, then the carborundum grit sprinkled on, the grit that doesn't stick is poured off and saved. We varnished the blocks before printing. Extra layers of varnish make it easier to wipe off the ink and leave white paper in the print.

 This is the block made with two grades of sandpaper. Again the block was varnished before using and extra varnish painted on where I wanted to wipe off most of the ink. You can see the colour of the mdf where the extra varnish was painted on.

Yes, I printed using a turquoise coloured ink. Even varnished the heavy sandpaper picks up a lot of ink.

You can take several prints off (with damp paper) each time you ink the block. Succeeding prints are lighter. In this print I have overprinted the third print of the sandpaper block. It's quite light. With the third printing off the carborundum block of a hand.







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Welcome to my new blog

I was a printmaker for many years at a casual level but  have improved my work hugely through studying at the Learning Connexion. This is not an advert! Its a great school especially when you can attend part-time and work extramurally.
I wanted to learn how to paint. I wanted to do 3D work. I wanted to draw more. Well I have done that and it has improved my printmaking so much.
This drawing was done at the life drawing group I work with every week. I still don't like drawing so much but life drawing is tremendous. The human form in all its' varieties is never boring.