The terrible truth.........

So, time to disappear into the subterranean world of my mate's print studio and see whether the plates I've made will produce anything like a decent print.

My box of tricks

First, I get out the inks I'll be using. I'm not quite sure of the colours I'm going to be using yet - have a vague idea about blues and browns, but also a feeling I'll end up with yellows and greens as I always gravitate towards these.

Having mixed up some colours, decide they are pretty horrible - that pale blueghh is probably one of the worst colours I've ever seen.....

 

I tend to use brushes to 'paint' the ink onto the plate, pushing it into all the crevices.  

By this time, as you can see, I've given up on the blue idea completely and have yellow/green/blue variations and blue/grey sky.

I use 'scrim' (loosely woven cloth), then tissue paper to take the excess ink off, and the plate's ready for printing.

Something I did earlier - drew around the plate onto some acetate on the bed of the press, so I can position each plate in the same place (in theory, easier said than done, as will be seen later).

The plate on the press ready for printing 

 

 

  

The paper is then placed on top of the plate and rolled through the press.  I tend to do it once in each direction just to make sure! I also try to catch the paper under the blanket so it stays in the same place for printing of the second plate on top.

Unfortunately I fail in this task, so have to do a bit of guesswork in repositioning it before printing the etched plate.  Well, it is a test piece, after all....

Now for the etched plate....

I've used an old credit card to cover the surface of the plate with ink, and then scrape the excess off.  This is then followed by scrim and tissue, as with the collagraph plate.  I've used some sepia coloured etching ink as I want this layer to be all one colour over the top of the multicoloured collagraph. 

The plate is then positioned on the press, using the outline to 'register' the image with the previous one.

Tada!

And here's the print.  This is the first time I've seen how all the marks will work, especially in relation to each other from the two plates and I'm pretty pleased.  You can see in the bottom corner how the registration is out, as the paper came out of the press by accident in between pressings.  And my decision to add the pva bit at the bottom was vindicated! The etched elements are a bit more feint than I would have liked, and this may be down to my having taken too much ink off the plate.

I made a few notes about things I could change on the plates, or subsequent prints.

Illegible scrawl - more colour variation, more PVA for horizon, more lines on moon?

  

I quite like the subtle colours of this print, but today is about experimentation and a pot of violet ink on Cath's shelf catches my eye.........

Woohoo!  The collagraph plate before wiping - definitely more colour variation here!

I really like this version too - the etched elements have worked a lot better as I wiped the plate a bit less so there's more ink left in the indentations to come out on the print. 

Out of interest at this point I tried printing just the etched plate to see how it looked. Really I suppose I should have done this beforehand but it was all too exciting.

So there it is.  As I feared, there's a bit too much contrast in the sky for my liking, but, in conjunction with the subtler marks in the collagraph it seems to work better. 

I printed a few more versions, on different papers and with varying success.  It's amazing how many different things can go wrong with a print - never, of course, all on the same one, so I have problems with registration with a couple, and a really annoying smudge from inky fingers on what would otherwise be a perfect print.

Colours a bit more subtle - or muddy?

Dodgy registration

The product of 3 hours work

 So, then the inevitable clearing up, and the legacy of indelibly grubby fingers for the next few days.

 Tomorrow I'm having a coffee break with some crafty colleagues, and I'll have a really good look at the prints again, and think about any improvements which can be made.  I also need to give some thought to my ambition to get some silver leaf on the moon.  This is going to be A Technical Problem as it needs to go underneath the other images......thought and research is required!

So, back underground on Friday, which will hopefully result in some saleable prints - time will, again, tell.