A couple of years ago I did an amazing collagraph workshop with Jet James. Read more about it and see some of my prints here.
Time has passed and I’ve done many more things since then but I’ve always had Jet in mind. I love his own artworks, I love the techniques he taught us and I still love the print plate I produced in the workshop.
Yesterday it was time to get it back out and reprint it.
My preference, for my own practice, has always been stylization. I don’t have either the interest or skill to produce realism in my work. Simplification, minimalism and the general idea of the subject is where my hand and mind tend to go. Yes, I’ve spent many, many an hour fighting this and trying to produce work in other forms but all that happens is that I create a brain-block.
So my goal yesterday was to reprint this foamex collagraph plate, keeping the mood I previously created but adding to the colour range. I chose Pthalo Blue and Sepia.
So, two quite reasonable prints, each with different good and not-so-good points.
Left hand print: The colour balance isn’t great, too much blue which I should have kept towards the upper part. Great highlights on the lower flowers and also the slight highlighted areas on the vase tops has come out well. I need to improve on that next time.
The vigorous rubbing back on the lower section, created by crumpled and slashed masking tape, has produced really excellent texture.
Right hand print: Much better colour placement. Slight error along the top edge where the ink isn’t evenly spread, but not significant in the overall piece. Not enough rubbing back on the lower masking tape area. Overall, a nice clean image but with a lack of highlights. I wonder how additional hand-colouring on this might work?
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