Collagraph update

The workshop went well thanks to Angela at Flatbed and the great attendees. Everyone was excited about printmaking, and that is always nice to see.

Some results:

My own proof of my 1/2 finished collagraph plate just indicated I needed to do more work than expected, so I did what I could on my plate while assisting at the press. We also had a weird thing happen with the Akua Intaglio ink. The paper stuck to the plate in a big, bad way and for the first 10 mins of printing I was in a panic. What happened??? I'm not sure what the culprit was, because my Akua inked proof came off fine, but we eased off the pressure and used the Akua Release Agent. We just used a thin roll up of this mystery goo--after the plate was already inked and wiped--and the prints never had any more sticking. Sure, I've done a ton of collagraphs and never had this problem, but this was my first attempt at using Akua. The Release Agent trick for collagraphs is not listed on the their website. 

 

Since the proof above, I've worked a bunch more on my plate and hopefully will have a chance to print it soon. I found a new-to-me technique in the book Collagraph Printmaking by Donald Stoltenberg, 1975. It's imprinting an object into modeling paste. It appears to be successful. I'll post more on this later.