Collograph play day with Janine Pope

On Sunday 24th July a few more Guild members cut, stabbed, punched and shellac'd their way to creating a collograph plate for printing purposes.

Work in progres

Janine, part Scandinavian, is an artist working with print, text and fabric to create individual pieces. An award winning bookbinder she began the day showing a few of the things she creates under the pseudonym of
Mud Rabbit.

One of Janine's glorious collograph plates

We built up low relief textures on mount board, carving into the board too,; we used bits if vintage haberdashery, eggshells, shiny surface card etc to create texture - this became our printing 'plate.'

Pam's synchronized swimmers

Everything was held down with wood glue and varnished with shellac; the plates dried in the sun outside while we ate lunch before getting our hands dirty.

Janine discussed the work of artist Rex Ray - and Lance Letscher, artworks made by a similar process of collage.

Heavy weight cartridge paper and 'Fabriano Rosaspina' paper (there's a name to conjure with)  were cut to size and put to soak in a water bath whilst we were shown the methods of  blind embossing, inking plates and running plates through the roller press.

Janine with Pam at the small press

The rest of the afternoon was ours to experiment - with sandwiches of newsprint, inked (or not) plate, fabriano, newsprint, blanket and a good bit of exercise for upper arm definition we all came away with printed designs.

Nichola exercising on the big roller

Many of course worked on fabrics - we're textile artists, what else? Some had followed ideas around the kickstart theme, and water played a significant part in many ideas; others just played with the process.

Carol inking up her watery themed plate

Another generous artist, providing multi coloured inks, papers, and all the equipment necessary for a fabulous workshop - thanks Janine!

Blind embossing - inspired by the previous days' cartoon workshop

Comments from the feedback sheets:

"A very enjoyable day - lots of energy from the tutor"
"...this tutor was absolutely brilliant!"
"... excellent - fantastic day"

" completely ignorant of technique but by the end of the day I had made three good prints - excellent tutor!"