Collographs with Vinita Voogd Day Two

On the second day of our collograph workshop at Wingtip Press, we started printing our plates.

This is one of Vinita's plates that she brought with her that had already been used.

Vignette rolling the ink on a plate.

The plates could be used for a relief print by rolling the ink onto the surface.  Or as an intaglio print by swiping ink onto the plate then rubbing it off so the ink is only in the "grooves." For the intaglio method, the paper needs to be damp.

This is an example that Vinita brought with her of the intaglio method.

Vinita with a relief print that has been run through the press. 

Terry reveals one of her prints. We love to crowd around the press when someone is printing to see what the result is.

Mary with her print on top (with Amy hiding behind) and the plate on the bottom.

I only tried the relief method and have just a couple of prints that I like, which I will show you in the next post.  The other ones I can work on by adding stuff, overprinting or using for collage papers.

Collagraphs with Vinita Voogd

Last week I was back at Wingtip Press (in their new location) taking a collagraph workshop from artist, Vinita Voogd.  Vinita lives in California and came to Idaho to teach her collagraph technique in a two-day workshop.

Vinita showing us examples of her prints.

On the first day, we made our plates for printing and got some of our papers ready.  Here, Vinita is showing us how to make a plate.

Amy, Theresa and Cassandra help Vinita remove extra rubber cement from the plate.

This is a print Vinita made and labelled to show how different items might look after printing.

There were six of us participants taking the workshop.  Mary, Deb and Sherry work on their plates.

Here is an example of one of Vinita's beautiful collagraphs.  Do go to her website for much better pictures than this one.

I'll show you some of what we did on the second day in the next post.

Monotype Printing

I have been spending some time at Wingtip Press this month working on a series of reduction monotype prints.  Going regularly is helping me get practice with the technique and better understand what tools I prefer to use.  I still need lots of practice in figuring out how much of the three primary colors to remove to get the final results and colors I would like.

Here is the stage on the second piece in the series where I have already printed the yellow and the red.  I forgot to take a picture of just the yellow, but most of the image has yellow so there was not much to see.

This is the plate as I am working on the blue layer.  As you can see, I have removed most of the blue ink.

And now we have the final print with all three colors.

Leaf Anatomy 2

three color reduction monotype

image: 8" x 10"

With this process, you only get one original print and maybe a ghost.  

I'm not totally happy with this print.  But I'm not exactly sure why.  It is very different than working in fabric.  This particular technique is better to use for softer lines, more texture and more blending, as opposed to the strong graphic lines that I like to use in my fabric artwork.

If you are wondering what happened to Leaf Anatomy 1, you can see it in this post, toward the bottom.

Another Monotype Monday

Monday evening I was back at Wingtip Press for Monotype Monday.  There is no instruction.  It is just a time to go to the studio and work on Monotype prints.  I went without having any real idea of what I wanted to work on.

I brought stencils and stamps and brushes; all different tools you can use in a monotype.  There are so many ways to do monotypes.  I know I have just brushed the surface (literally, ha).

A monotype is where you are working directly on the plate with inks (paint, whatever) and then you pull one print.  That's all.  You can pull a ghost if there is some ink left on the plate.  But then, you have to start over again.

The Wingtip Press studio.

 Brian Schreiner revealing his monotype.  This is the fun part when you get to see how it turned out.

I didn't have an idea to start with but once I start playing around, I usually can find some direction to go.  Here is one of my prints, probably the best one of the night. I used some stencils on this (so far my favorite technique) and the background is actually a ghost from a previous print. 

When you don't have a plan, obviously, you don't always get something good.  But you do learn.  This is probably the only one I like well.

More Monotypes

I've never really understood the different between a monotype and a monoprint until now.  Here is how wikipedia explains the different between the two.

"Historically, the terms Monotype and Monoprint were often used interchangeably. More recently, however, these are now used to refer to very similar types of printmaking which are somewhat different. Both involve the transfer of ink from a plate to the paper, canvas, or other surface that will ultimately hold the work of art. In the case of monotypes, the plate is a featureless plate. It contains no features that will impart any definition to successive prints. . . . In the absence of any permanent features on the surface of the plate, all articulation of imagery is dependent on one unique inking, resulting in one unique print.

Monoprints, on the other hand, now refers to the results of plates that have permanent features on them. Monoprints can be thought of as variations on a theme, with the theme resulting from some permanent features being found on the plate—lines, textures—that persist from print to print. Variations are confined to those resulting from how the plate is inked prior to each print. The variations are endless, but certain permanent features on the plate will tend to persist from one print to the next."

Rose Davies (the instructor of our monotype workshop) explained it more simply as a monotype starts with a empty surface (plate), whereas the monoprint starts with an existing printing plate (i.e. a carved woodblock).

I have been back to Wingtip Press to work on a few more three color reduction monotypes like we did in the workshop.  I was working with an image of italian prune plums.  Here is the resulting print and the ghost print.

I liked the ghost better and will see if I can work into it with some oil pastel or pencils.  The first print is just a little too strong graphically for what I was envisioning and the texture is also a little harsh.  

It was bothering me so much that I had to go back another day to try again.  I thought I knew what to do to make it better (for me).  Here is the second attempt and the ghost print.

I am much happier with the second attempt. It has a softer look to it.  Although now that I have "fixed" it, the first one is starting to grow on me.  They are just two different looks of the same image.  

Which one do you like better?

Print 150

I've been writing quite a bit about Wingtip Press and Boise's sesquicentennial lately. And today that trend continues with both.  To celebrate Boise's 150 years, Wingtip Press has been doing a series of free workshops (funded by a grant from the City Arts & History department) throughout the year called Print 150.

Participants need to sign up to reserve a space for the two day workshop.  In the workshop they create collagraph prints of different houses/buildings found around Boise.  Everything is provided and no skill in printmaking is needed.  Anyone can do it and it is a great introduction to printmaking.

I signed up myself and Anna to attend the workshop which started last Thursday and was completed yesterday.  Last week we worked on creating our plate.

Anna working on her plate

Here is what our plates looked like after we had glued various items onto it (mostly wallpaper papers).  Anna's is first.

Amy Nack (Wingtip Press owner and artist) coated the plates and pressed them flat so that this week they would be ready to print. Yesterday we inked up the plates and ran them through the press.  We made three prints (2 regular and 1 ghost).  A ghost print is made by running the plate through the press after a first run print without re-inking.  Here's how they turned out.

One of Anna's first run prints.

Anna's ghost print.

One of my first run prints.

My ghost print.

I have not made a collagraph print before. It's fun to see how the different textures turn out.  One print will be kept for the city and they have been and will continue to be shown in different locations throughout the year.

Wingtip Press will be hosting a few more of these workshops throughout the remainder of the year.  Keep checking the website for dates/times or the City Arts & History Department's Boise 150 site.