Resistance!

I was well out of my comfort zone at last weeks drawing group session - we had to select from packaging to make a collaged drawing - mine, and many of the others too, turned out to be a comment about consumerism. It made me realise that this is not an area of drawing I want to pursue - I had a strong resistance to the task in hand and wanted to leave but I persisted - I sometimes think there is more learning in the things you don't want to do rather than what you love doing!  Resistance is coming up for me a lot at the moment - even in doing what I usually love doing. I wonder if this is the winter blues - thank goodness January is over - the weather has been extra miserable this year and I'm hoping we will have more light in February! I've hardly done any walking as it's just been too boggy everywhere.  

I don't like the work I did and have put it in the bin but here is a record just to remind me. I hope this weeks session produces some more positive results!

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Carborundum and collagraphs

 I have been at Mary Gillett's collagraph workshop over the weekend. I was so busy over the 2 days that I completely forgot to take any photographs of progress - very remiss of me! So I've had a day in my own studio making some more tester plates and pressing the prints that I did on the workshop and taking a few photos of the process.

Although I made lots of collagraphs during my MA I always used plant material and polyfilla so I've been keen to try other methods of making the plates. I used carborundum and tile cement on these small experimental plates - I found it quite difficult to get the effect I wanted. There are so many different ways to use carborundum so I made the plate below last night as a guide for future plates. The next stage will be to use the new methods along with the plant material. 

Carborundum tester plate 

Mountboard base with first stage of tile cement 

Plywood base with tile cement and second stage of carborundum 

Various small experimental plates 

Print using 6-8 layers of PVA over solid carborundum

I also made an aluminum plate covered with parcel tape, drafting tape and sellotape and then burnt with a blowtorch - this is great fun and totally beyond any control as the plastic under heat just does it's own thing. I printed it in black and then adding 2 colours and using the viscosity relief printing method 

Print from aluminum plate 

Adding relief colour 

Printed in black intaglio and 2 colour viscosity relief 

Now I need to do some more printing which I can't do at home as I don't have a press unfortunately.