Printmaking Update

I spent all of Tuesday and a few hours on Wednesday in the Print room this week. I created 3 new lino's of which took about 4 hours, I did 3-4 black copies of each then did some experiments with colour. The black copies were quick and I finished them in an afternoon, the colour work took quite a bit of time.

I tried some Chine Colle inspired by the work of Helen Brown. I tried this using both coloured printing ink and black printing ink. Its a nice way to add colours without having to use lots of different inks and can add some texture.

I printed one bird in black and then made a small lino of a mask which I will cut out and stick on when it is dry. I will have to wait until then to decide whether this is a good method.

I tried to create gradients of colour which was harder than I thought, because the colours blend a lot as you're trying to get the ink to the right consistency so it almost becomes one colour. I also tried using gradients and colle. It looks more effective than a singular colour and easier than a lot of the other methods of applying colour.

Finally I cut up one of my lino's and inked each bit separately. I used about seven different colours and the whole process took ages. I needed to clean everything after I made each colour, because of this I was only able to make one print (I made a more faded one as well). A solution to this might be to use a few sheets of perspex and make each of the colours so I would only need to clean the rollers and pallet knife and I could make more than one print. It did look very effective but if I did this it could only be a small or one part of the book or use a lot less colours.

I will not print with black first again, it muddied a lot of my colours, especially the yellows.

It's hard to know what to do, I like the black and white images because its striking and puts emphasis on the patterns and mark making. Colour makes it more delicate and adds some variety. When discussing with a friend they liked the gradient piece and felt when I used colle with black ink I shouldn't use too many colours. I think I will have to give this more thought when everything is dry and I can have a good look at it. It may be nice to either have a colour opening page or odd bits of colour dotted around which makes it more special and less overwhelming. Considering how busy I want my piece to be a lot of colour might be too much.

What I really need to work on now is the book and how I want the pages to be composition wise, I need to look at using silhouette and how my book is going to work. I need to think about how each page emphasises it's section of the story in more detail. I want to try having some birds very close so I can focus on their wings and the texture and also try out Baroque Patterns.