more snippets from the week

here are a few of the things i worked on there..

this is an example of *extreme printing*.. i did quite a few pieces on the lovely palm bark that was laying around just begging to be used.. i've coated them with matte medium since i've gotten home and look forward to using them in some future work:

the dry studio space was located in what is their dance studio,

so we had design mirrors.. kidn of weird working while looking at yourself!

we also had a thermofax machine there so i spent the first day making

screens that i hadn't had time to make before i left... the next day i printed another scroll piece... i didn't have a piece of rusted fabric that looked appropriate so i printed it on white pfd and will rust it after the fact.

also started a rust composition, which was left lanquishing after i started playing with the various embellishers that were there. i did have one more rust compostion up, that is now hanging on my design wall here..

and here are a few of the things i did with the embellisher... not only is it fun, but i have so many fabrics and fibers that are perfect for this process.. i absolutely have got to get one of these.

and this one, below, is still a work in progress

collagraph tutorial

to say that i'm thrilled to be going to the fiber arts retreat at the atlantic center for the arts in florida in march would be an understatement! i'm looking forward to finally meeting pamela in canada as well as many other people that are going to be there.

the art center is full of great studios and tools, including a printing press, and there are many of us who are interested in playing with that. so i've put together info on doing collograph plates while i'm getting some ready to bring with me.

a collagraph is a printing plate constructed of collaged elements on a thin material, such as matte board. some of the materials that work well are most papers (typing, printmaking, drawing), self adhesive paper and/or plastic labels, paper tape, plastic packing tape, acrylic paint and white glue. i love these stickers that i bought on sale way back when at michaels; i've used them both for collagraph plates, and also as resists when painting canvas and fabric. they stick REALLY well.

on the right is a plate i made using clear packing tape that i cut with a rotary cutter. i also did some relief work, and etched lines into the board.

below is a plate made with mylar. i cut it into strips with a rotary cutter, then scrunched it up to wrinkle it, and glued it down with acrylic paint on the left, and white glue on the rest of it..

and on the bottom right is one of the plates done with the adhesive stickers.

the next step will be to coat these plates with white spray paint. it keeps the ink from soaking into the cardboard, and also makes it easy to clean the surface.

some materials that don't work well are drafting tape / duct tape/ contact paper (won’t stay stuck), silk or real flowers and leaves , and sandpaper (holds too much ink.

and finally here is one of the prints i made layering 3 different collage plates. i used one of my extra prints on one of my 2002 journal pages.

the tree

that was clear as mud wasn't it?

i went into photoshop and enlarged the tree image, printed it on paper, and pinned the paper to the piece to visualize placement. see right:

then i took several photos.

this is one of them

i decided i liked it better without the screen printed organza behind it, so took several without it... (not pictured)

i then back into photoshop and erased most of the white paper from the orinted page to get a better idea of what it would look like once it was printed onto the piece.

and got this (see below) a photo of the image, printed on paper, (with most of the white background gone), and pinned to my piece...

which allowed me to get an idea of what it would look like,

and make sure that the scale was right.

i burned the screen, and then printed it onto the piece.

pictured below in last post.

i hope that is a little clearer!

why does who's on first keep running thru my head?? ;-)