Another week gone by, but what a week.
Since launching the project Same Sea, Different Boat: Our Isolation Story I have been busily answering collagraph questions and inking plates.
My post has been arriving in bundles with elastic bands and its all better than Christmas, (no guilt that I haven't sent a card back!)
A big THANK YOU to everyone who is supporting this project by sending a collagraph, promising a stitched square or by donating to the Just Giving Page to fund the quilt.
We are in a funny intermediate phase with the lock down at the moment, not knowing quite what we need to be doing. I have to admit this project has made me feel like I am back at work, which is great.
This week I thought I would give you an insight into what happens to your plate when it has arrived at the yard:ARTspace.
I have inked up about 40 collagraphs over the last couple of days. I am using oil based Hawthorn stay open etching ink in Prussian Blue. With so many plates to work on I have been slackening down the ink with linseed gel to make the wiping off that bit easier.
I thought I would make a specific plate for the project, so I have gone back to my Covid Corvid theme. This is very simply made using grey board, cutting and peeling into the card and gluing for white and high lights. Collagraph plate making instructions can be found here
I scrape the ink across the plate, pushing it into all the textures and then scraping off the excess.
Then I blot...
and blot...
and blot lots more with newspaper.
I then polish the surface clean using yellow pages.
This plate shows very clearly an area of peeled card holding ink. Glued areas and I would say that this plate has had lots of layers of glue with the small circles drawn into the wet glue, comes up nice and clean.
The plate is popped onto my table top press.
The cotton fabric placed on top of the plate.
The fabric is pushed into the textures of the plate by the action of the press to pick up the ink. The answer to the next question is, yes, you need a press to print collagraphs.
The variety of collagraph images and techniques has been wide, here are just a few to kick start your imagination because it is not too late to join the project.
The details about what to do can be found HERE
When the collagraph is printed, I will pop it back in the post to you to add stitching. The Prussian Blue is a perfect background for colour. If there is a bit you are not happy with just stitch over it. It is an easier way to add words, none of that flipping the letters round to get it the right way.
Often the printed textures will suggest the stitching. Yes I thought this wall paper looked like lungs.
But if you are more comfortable with just sending a stitched piece, please do.
Louise, Liske and I hope to have everyone's squares back with us by the beginning of July so that we can start putting this quilt together.
Keep up to date with the progress of Same Sea, Different Boat by following my Instagram page HERE
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