Glenda: Beach hut series
Glenda: Beach hut series, inked a la poupee

What works well here is the contrast between strongly and lightly textured areas, which is supported by different tonal values. As a result, the image can easily be read as figure and ground.

This was one of the major problems I identified in my own collagraphs. Both the group of small geese and the single large goose were texturally not different enough from the background. Using different colours for figure and background improved overall readability, but overall the composition did not provide enough textural contrast between different areas.

Angie: Leaf series
Angie: Landscape and feathers

The leaf and feather prints use natural objects to create interesting textures. I think an intaglio technique was used to wipe away ink from the surfaces, probably also making use of differences in ink retention. The landscape works through the colour contrast between the warm brown and cold blue.

These prints show another element that I did not get to work in my collagraphs, the intaglio wiping technique. Maybe it has to do with the textures I used, which may have had to much size difference. Actually I did not try out natural objects, maybe this would have worked better.

Bryce: Little owl
Bryce: Kestrel

The two prints make use of strong figurative images and expressive shape, with a lovely feather texture for the kestrel. Compared to this, I think my geese shapes might have been a bit simplistic and the textures I chose did not sufficiently support the “feathery” aspect of my chosen subject. But I don’t want to be overcritical, as the shapes might have worked if set against a quieter background texture.

Lenisa: Sculptural work
Claire: Gingko leaf series

I think the ‘sculptural’ prints strongly build on the wiping technique. The middle one with irregular shaped objects looks particularly intriguing. It’s breaking up the standard rectangle image boundaries. I discoverd this during linocut research and used it for the experimental linocut as well. It’s nice to see this applied to collagraph as well.

The Gingko leaf series explores a variety of approaches. Some are a bit weaker for the same reason I criticised my collagraphs, not enough contrast between figure and ground. But they are interesting to look at nevertheless. Again a single leaf evokes the impression of a whole tree. This reminds me of my leaf prints in part 1, where I created landscapes with trees based on the effect.

To conclude, looking at these prints I think that I was right being less than satisfied with my collagraph prints so far, and also identified what I could improve for future attempts.

Post scriptum

It was only after completing Part 5 of the course that I realized this little research must have worked subconsciously as an encouragement to choose collagraph in the final project, despite the technical difficulties I had encountered in Part 4. I guess this is an example of how much I integrate what I see and study along the way, without immediately drawing the connections or anticipating future effects. I’m much more at ease with this kind of organic influencing, compared to deliberately working “in the style of” any particular artist.

References

Original Facebook posting by Hester Cox: https://www.facebook.com/hestercoxprintmaker/posts/800684823352850

Life with Facebook groups

There’s good things and there’s bad things about this. The good thing is that I feel connected to current art practice and see what other people are doing. Particularly important for this module is the OCA printmaking group, where students regularly post recent works, art stuff they come across, and discuss printmaking stuff. We’re all aware that the OCA student forum should be the place for this to happen, but Facebook offers much more social connectedness and easy interaction so this is probably the reason for its success.

On the downside, I observe that I’m quite quick in following up, but usually don’t do in-depth research because of the constant arrival of new stuff. I’m in a phase of learning how to keep up with all the information, and my reception might be somewhat too superficial. On the other hand, it does happen that things really capture my interest and this leads to prolonged research, as was the case when I came across David Bull and his Mokuhankan Project. I spent several days reading about his activities, and how he used crowdfunding to finance a printmaking studio close to his home in Ome (Tokyo), Japan. This also inspired my use of rice paper, some experimentation with flour paste and watercolours to print (not successful so far), and with image transfer. I used this to prepare one of the collagraph plates (the goose).

The Facebook printmakers groups also provide much stimulation from the prints members post. It’s interesting and inspiring to see work that’s done at a professional level, unrelated to OCA course briefs, fresh and not yet embedded in artspeak -isms. Linoprints by Hans von Doehren, a German artist and printmaker living in Berlin and Bretagne in France, come to mind. In December and January, he posted a series of prints made by his father, who was also an artist. The father lived and worked in Berlin, Germany in the early 20th century and made exceptional, expressionist linocuts.

In particular, the ‘Linocut friends’ Facebook group provided me with lots of visual input and showed me that I’ve only scratched the surface with my first attempts in the medium.

Other inspirations

During part 4, I haven’t been to an exhibition. There were the Matisse Cut-outs and the Cubist exhibition which I wanted to see, but didn’t make it. Reasons are a combination of busy work schedule, general exhaustion, and bad weather. I hope that as spring arrives and the weather gets better the enthusiasm for going out returns.

The most recent big topic for me is rediscovery of Elvis Presley and his music. I’ve been researching his life and performances and am off my feet by the way he sang. The memories I had were from his last years and I hadn’t realized there was so much more. Born in 1935 he was older than my father and would have turned 80 on January 15, 2015. What I find truely inspirational is the way he was present, in the moment, during his live performances. But also watching old footage from studio rehearsals is hugely interesting. He must have been quite an exceptional person. I know it’s not related to artmaking or my current printmaking practice, but I’m deeply impressed at a personal level.

References

David Bull, Mokuhankan project site http://mokuhankan.com/ (accessed 26 Feb 2015)
Hans von Doehren, artist and printmaker https://www.facebook.com/Hansvondoehren (accessed 26 Feb 2015)

It’s good to get this kind of feedback because I think I’m sometimes “too close” to what I’m doing. The outside perspective is helpful as a different take on things. I noticed that I get a more detached view after some time has passed, discovering qualities I did not appreciate when I had just finished them.

As for Eduardo Chillida (1924-2002), he was a Spanish (Basque) Sculptor. I found a blog with a video showing an exhibition of his works in the United States. The monumental sculptures were set up in a golf lawn. They look quite expressive. The blog also features the image my tutor included in the feedback, set in context with three others.

What fascinates me about Chillida’s sculptures is the combination of curved shapes and hard edges, created in hard materials like iron or stone, which I perceive as rigid and fixed. The combination creates much tension. It should be interesting to draw these objects from various angles.

I’ve recently become interested in sculpture but wasn’t able to find the time for further exploration, so this was a nice opportunity to look outside my usual interest in 2-dimensional works. Prints are normally seen as 2-dimensional, but collagraph prints extended my understanding somewhat. I realized that the plates are actually 3-dimensional – as any relief and can have multiple height layers. In addition to this, the plates create an embossing of the paper, which is also a 3-dimensional effect.

Actually last summer I went outside during lunch breaks and on two occasions, made sketches of a large sculpture. They were done in the context of my watercolour course. The second one is only a section and I’ve used a white pencil to increase the 3-dimensionality. I’m including them only for reference here because they are going to be assessed elsewhere.

The sculpture is by Robert Cook, named “Dinoceros” and it really looks like some strange kind of artificial dinosaur. It’s located on 51st Street/Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. During lunchtime, lots of people are around, eating their lunch from a nearby food stand or smoking a cigarette.

I thought it might be interesting to make sculptures myself with the intention of setting up some interesting objects and views to draw. Of course I’d do something simpler and smallish which would fit into my studio!

References

Eduardo Chillida Blog post: http://nialldebuitlear.com/blog/?p=1097 (accessed 24 Feb 2015)

Video of 2011 Exhibition in Florida, USA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3quRqVGFCfA (accessed 24 Feb 2015)

Suminagashi is a water-based marbling technique. The difference to other marbling techniques is that inks are put on plain water, no thickening agent is used. The ink stays on the surface because of the water’s surface tension and a hydrophobic effect between water and inks. Little drops of ink are placed on the surface with a brush and distribute themselves over the area. Interesting patterns can be created by bringing the water into soft motion, for example by wiggling with a skewer or by lightly blowing.

I was totally fascinated when I saw this demonstrated in an instructional video. From reading around in the web, I picked up that this was supposed to work with Chinese and India ink as well. So I went ahead with a first trial using my Student Grade India ink. Well, it didn’t work, the ink was too heavy and sank to the bottom immediately, rather than creating ink swirls on the water surface. With some more trial and error I finally got some ink stay on the surface. I then placed a piece of paper, about A6 size, onto the surface, let it soak briefly, then took it out. Unfortunately, it did not hold the patterns. The result was just an irregular brown wash on the paper. I took the sheet and played around a bit with the remaining ink from my brush, watching the ink disperse on the wet paper surface. This was interesting as well, but not what I intended. I had used some leftovers of a torn sheet of Arches Text Wove paper and later learned that the cauliflowers on this image happened because of the sizing of the paper. Good to know!

So I decided to order the ‘Suminagashi Marbling Ink Set’ and give it another try. While the inks were better at staying on the surface, the result on paper (Arches text wove again) didn’t work too well either. I switched to rice paper, and this time there was some progress, and I actually got some marbling effects transferred! The only problem was that the rice paper disintegrated when it got wet, and I had trouble getting the little sheets out of the water tray. The first two pieces came out with only minor damage to the borders, but the third paper which looked so promising tore apart. How annoying!

    
left: Arches text wove, A5: minimal marbling effect
right: Sumi-e rice paper: Marbling works better, but the paper tears when wet!

I had been printing a collagraph on rice paper from a paper roll before. I had even soaked it and got it out of the bath tub without tearing it apart. Probably that paper was of better quality. So I made another try with that paper, took a large piece off the role, tore it into A5 pieces which would fit into the tray, and made another series. This time, it worked. The paper didn’t tear and it took on the colours off the water surface with only minimal blurr. Over the series of 8 sheets, I began to get a feel for creating patterns and tried out different methods to combine different colours. The image shows the 8 sheets in the order I made them, starting with the left column downwards, then the right column downwards.

Here are some pictures I took from the process. I worked in the bathroom and had placed a little plastic tray between the sinks. The left image shows the inks on the water surface after I had finished dropping. The right image shows how it looked after I created some water movement to make the ink wander around. This was the surface from which I made the 6th sheet (2nd column, second sheet).

Since this worked quite nicely, I wanted to try larger sheets of paper. As a tray, I used a large plastic tablet. The first attempt was a rice paper sheet almost as large as the tray, about A2 format. the second was sulphite drawing paper somewhat smaller than A3.

With the larger size, the entire process became a bit awkward because I wasn’t able to carry the water-filled tray around. Instead placed the empty tray onto my work surface in the hall and went to the bathroom about 20 times to fill it with water glass-wise. Later I had to get the water out the same way. Next time I’ll certainly use a little bucket!

The large surface also had a diluting effect on the colours. I needed much more ink to obtain at least moderately intense colours. The inks were less intense on the sulfite paper. The colours look a bit strange, like food colouring, and the overall impression is a bit Kitsch. But overall, the entire process of making Suminagashi sheets was great fun. It’s almost meditational experience to sit quiet in front of the water, dropping ink and watching what happens on the water surface.

Suminagashi is quite similar to printing, because you take an impression of an inked surface! I think it’s quite cool, overall. I still need to find a better technique for getting the large sheets into the water without creating air bubbles, because these leed to white spots, as you can see in the middle of the large sheet. I also need a better method to get the large sheets out of the water, reducing a bit of smear from dark ink running over the sheet. Maybe the sheet must soak a little longer or a little shorter, I’ll have to experiment.

Possible impact

Besides having fun with Suminagashi, I was also reflecting how this might impact my printmaking. One aspect is certainly the different mindset that comes along with the technique. It’s exciting to observe the developing patterns on the water surface and to see how they come out on the paper. I’m not sure if it’s possible to create figurative images, nor if I would I want to. But creating interesting abstract patterns is nevertheless worthwhile for me.

Suminagashi might be combined with other printmaking techniques, using the marbled patterns as elements in a figurative composition. Maybe it’s possible to mask areas of the paper, so it gets only partially marbled. Or use cut-outs of Suminagashi sheets in a collage that also includes printed elements.

The broader impact might be seen in context of my recent research into Japanese woodcutting (Mokuhanga technique) and interest in finding out more about Japanese printmaking techniques. I don’t know where this might lead to but for now I think it’s good that I’m beginning to be more experimental and open-minded in my practice.

References

Suminagashi class at Center for Book Art, Manhattan http://centerforbookarts.org/event/suminagashi/

Blick instructional video https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-cl=84359240&v=J410yQ7PI1E&x-yt-ts=1421782837

Suminagashi ink set, avaiable from Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Innovation-Marbling-Kit-Japanese-Suminagashi/dp/B003W2PX8M/ref=pd_sim_ac_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=1CSM6T2PGEN723DHQADG

Suminagashi website with basic instructions, recommending Kodak Photo-Flo (as “surfectant” to add to the ink) http://suminagashi.com/

My first in-depth introduction to collagraph was through the Book “Collagraph Printmaking” by Mary Ann Wenniger, which I bought for the collagraph section of the printmaking course. The book dates back to 1975 and I have the paperback edition from 1980. It contains mostly black-and-white images which is a pity because it makes it difficult to follow the instructions when you cannot see the details in their true colours. Nevertheless it is a very inspirational book with many tipps and techniques.

I was just wondering why the course introduction seems to talk only about relief printing on a collagraph plate, whereas I think that intaglio printing and wiping away ink from the plate is what actually makes that technique exciting. Also the combination of intaglio and relief printing opens up many possibilities for experimentation with the technique. Maybe it’s introduced later in that part, but otherwise I guess I’m going to experiment on my own.

Another recent contact with collagraph printmaking was my visit to the exhibition of prints by Clare Romano and John Ross (Blog post http://ocaprintmaking1.blueconcretemoon.com/?p=831). A large part of their prints were collagraphs and some were exhibited together with the plates from which they were printed. I was very impressed by the richness of texture and also by the sheer size of the prints, of which many were in formats at least A2 or around 50 x 60 cm, not counting the paper rim.

So I’ve actually a good general idea what collagraph is and how amazing the effects are that can be created by printing from textured plates. So I’ll just keep it at a brief image search as suggested in the research brief, as I’m eager to get onwards to gain some practical experience.

Looking closer at some interesting collagraphs

Laurie Rudlinger, Alcazaba (blue variant) is a citiscape with a somewhat Italian or medieval flair. I think it was made by combining relief and intaglio techniques: It looks as if the dark blue colour was used for the intaglio, whereas a lighter green was applied to print as relief. The stone-like textures were probably created by making incisions into a medium, whereas the textures of sky and the rocks in the foreground look less organized and might be made with a less controllable technique. http://www.laurierudling.co.uk/uploads/gallery/31-alcazaba-blue-variant-collagraph-980px.jpg

Mari French, Harvest Moon. Apparently inspired from a workshop she took with Laurie Rudlinger, Mari French created a collagraph with textural qualities resulting directly from the materials glued on the plate and their different ink-holding capacity. The print also seems to combine intaglio and relief techniques with colours blue and yellow. http://marifrench.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/harvestmoon2blog.jpg

The print by Julie Howe shows incorporation of plant material. In her blog she explains the print was experimental and made during a workshop. To me it looks as if only the intaglio technique was applied, but the blue ink has a broad tonal range and thus creates a variety of tonal values from light to dark. http://mycuriousteaparty.blogspot.com/2010/08/collagraph-lessons-at-cuckoo-farm.html

Inga Gorsvans-Buell published the print Aerial Abstraction, which is more colourful than the other collagraph examples I chose. This could have been made by inking the collagraph plate with multiple different colours and wiping part of it away, then printing in one go. I haven’t employed the Dabbing technique in the previous course part because it did not fit my printmaking ideas for linoprint, but I see lots of applications for it with collagraphs and will certainly experiment with it. http://ingagorsvans-buell.com/aerial-abstraction/

References

Mary Ann Wenniger (1980) Collagraph Printmaking, available from Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Collagraph-Printmaking-Mary-Wenniger/dp/0823006662/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Exhibition visit: Prints by Clare Romano and John Ross at the Center for Contemporary Printmaking, Norwalk, CT http://ocaprintmaking1.blueconcretemoon.com/?p=831