The collographic plate results

I want to begin by apologizing to Dawn at Girl Unwinding because I didn't participate in Mandala Monday this week.  Please visit her blog to view her fabulous mandalas.  The reason I'm not playing with mandalas today is because I didn't want mutiny among my readers and followers.  Comments left the past two days indicate everyone wants to see the project completed, and SOON, too.

As with the previous two days (here and here in case you missed them), I will begin with the supplies needed to complete the task (from back left clockwise):

Practice paper (card stock and paint chip samples used)
Glaze
Inexpensive acrylic paint (two shades of green used)
Collographic plate
Paper plate to hold paint and glaze
Brayer
Craft sheet or other product to cover the surface of the table.

Pour a decent amount of glaze and paint of your choice in the paper plate.

Use your brayer to mix or combine the paint and glaze.

Run the brayer over the top of the plate, being careful to get only the highlights, in this case, the tree. Don't do what I did and allow part of the brayer to touch the base of the plate.  You will get a mess on your pulled sheet if you do.  Make sure you wipe off any excess paint and glaze (which of course, I didn't even notice) prior to the next step.

Lay your sheet of paper with the side you want to print facing the plate.  Use your hand or another brayer to press it down and smooth it out, reaching only the high points of the plate.

As an aside, you can use this exact same technique on fabric or copier paper, but you will need another sheet of heavy paper on top because the paint/glaze mixture will seep through to the back and you will get paint on your hand.  I often use an old file folder to cover my fabric, but since I am already using card stock and heavy paint chip samples, I can skip this step.

Once you believe you have made good contact with the collographic plate, gently lift and remove the finished piece.  Set aside to dry.  As you can see, I failed to remove the excess paint, which I didn't notice until I had created a few of these pieces.

Since these were samples I was trying before I used them on my file folders, I printed a few more before I ran out of paint and glaze.

Once the paint was gone, I cleaned the brayer and collographic plate, so they would be ready for use at a future time.  Don't allow wet paint to dry on either your brayer or your plate, because it is practically impossible to clean the plate afterward, which will affect future collagraphs.

Here are a few of the completed prints.   These sat for 12 hours and are STILL not dry, as you can probably tell.  So, you might want to use less glaze than I used.  However, I had to photograph them, or I would not have had finished examples for this post.

Ruminations:

1.  You will more than likely get better over time.  Not sure I did, but I got better at knowing how much paint to apply.

2.  Ghost prints (second prints) seem to be the best.

3.  I can't say this enough.  Keep a towel handy to wipe away any part of the paint left from the brayer that gets onto the base of the plate.

4.  Use only enough paint to cover the raised part of the plate.  I failed to remember that and that is why the ghost prints were so much better.  In fact, I might even wipe my brayer off a bit before I color the plate the next time.

5.  Although you can use Shiva/Markle Paint Stiks with this technique, I don't recommend it.  Nor do I recommend using crayons, colored pencils, or ink.  For this collographic plate, paint truly is the best only way to go.

6.  If you have made your collographic plate correctly, you can soak it in soapy water to remove excess paint.  Otherwise, you will have to wipe it down with a wet rag and a bit of running water.

I hope this has inspired you to make your own collographic plate.  This one was about as difficult as the two I made before, but this time I created my own image, rather than relying on found objects.

Today we celebrate Day 18
of AEDM with Leah, our host of this month long event. Are you still having fun?  Do you have better days than others?

My dear art friend and shop-aholic will be here by the time most of us wake on Monday morning.  Needless to say, I don't plan too much for Tuesday T, but of course, I will be here, if only in spirit and a scheduled post.