Collagraph Prints

These are just a couple of the prints I made in the collagraph workshop; the only ones I liked. The image sizes are about 8-1/2" x 8-1/2".

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.

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.