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| Drawings of carp |
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| Creating different carp plates for collograph |
After a holiday in Portugal where there was a beautiful carp pond at the place we stayed, I felt inspired to make a print of carp. I decided to create a collograph, as I wanted to capture the watery gloom of the pond and the fish swimming through these murky waters. I started off by drawing carp in different poses to capture the amazing shapes they make. I then made up plates of carp, using sheets of card, onto which I stuck pieces of bags that satsumas come in, and corrugated card.
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| Carp stuck onto foil covered mount card |
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| Detail of collograph plate |
I stuck some foil which had been crumpled up and flattened again onto a piece of mount card. I then cut out the carp from the sheets of card and stuck them onto the foil in a pleasing arrangement. I covered this with a layer of white gesso paint so that I'd be able to judge how much ink I'd put on - much easier on a white surface. This was followed by 2 layers of pva glue and a layer of varnish. The plate was left to dry thoroughly.
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| Collograph plate inked in grey ink |
I then started to ink the plate. I used quite a loose (oil based) ink in grey to begin with. I forced this into all the areas of the plate with an old paintbrush. I wiped off the excess grey.
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| Collograph plate inked up in orange and blue |
Using a roller, I rolled a bright orange ink onto the fish so that some of the detail of the fish was highlighted. I rubbed a blue ink onto the rest of the plate using a cloth.
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| Inked collograph plate on press |
I put the inked plate through my press. I have a relief press rather than an etching press, which is not ideal. However, I still manage to get effective results by soaking thick heritage paper and then blotting it dry. I also experiment to get the optimum degree of packing.
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| Orange and blue ink on collograph |
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| Orange and green ink on collograph |
Here you can see three different versions of the inked up plate. It's really good fun trying different combinations of colours.
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| Deep pink and blue ink on collograph |
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| The final collograph print ink pink and green |
However, collograph prints do not come alive fully until you have coloured the background using a wash of water based inks. Here you can see my final print. The collograph was inked up using pink on the fish and a blue background - I then used a wash of light pink on the fish and green on the water.
I used the print to create a fabric - if you like it, you can buy it from Spoonflower here.
