Collagraphs - a simple version

I enjoyed the Wanderlust Live weekend at the beginning of September where teachers from next year's course gave us some tasters of techniques and journal pages we may be doing.  I decided to make a little journal with an example from each teacher.  I was particularly taken with the simple collagraph with Claudette Hasenjager.    

I had made collagraphs (colla meaning glue and graph meaning draw) before, when I did my Foundation in Art and Design course.  These are plates made using collage with different textures, varnished (with shellac in my case, I remember) and then inked up and printed using a press.  As the press squashed a little more detail out of the materials with each printing, they were a limited use plate, which I liked, as it made each version more special.  I really enjoyed the process  although it was quite a time consuming one to create the plate, then varnish it, wait for the first layer to dry then varnish it again.  However, I was really impressed with the end result and the detail that was captured using simple materials, such as tin foil. (I enjoy all of the printing processes I have tried so far - lino printing, collagraph, simplified screen printing, block printing, hand carving my own stamps and printing with them, and monoprinting, using the gel plate).

Here are some photos of my collagraph from the Foundation in Art and Design course. This was the original photo I used to create my collagraph.

I then traced the image and reversed it for the plate.

This is the plate - I cut into the surface to create the dark areas, then used foil, string, paper and card to add the texture.

This was the first print, which worked really well.

This was the last print where you can see how much detail has been lost.  It was really interesting looking at these again after fourteen years since I finished the course!

However, during Wanderlust Live, we were shown a simplified version which was created on cardboard, using self adhesive foam, string and lace.  I don't have any self adhesive foam, but I did have ordinary foam, which I used instead, sticking it to the cardboard base with pva glue.

Here is the plate ready to be inked up with acrylic paint.  It is much bolder and with less detail than the collagraphs I made on my art course.

Here is the print on the left and the right hand one was coloured with watercolour.  I was really pleased with how these turned out and with  the detail from the different materials. I would like to try other designs using this technique as I think more detailed images could be created with finer cutting of the foam.

Needle felting workshop

 Last Sunday afternoon, I spent a very happy two hours learning how to needle felt little animals and birds.  A colleague at work had arranged for a feltmaker called Eve Marshall to come and give a workshop at her house.  I had seen a bit about needle felting and of course, Robyn from America had made me a needle felted Scruffy, so I knew what it was, but had never tried it.  Our first project was to make an owl and Eve took us through each stage with a lot of patience and help. Apparently, if you can make an owl, you have all the basics to make anything else.  (That seemed a bit ambitious, but I went with it).

 Needle felting does have some benefits over wet felting.  It is not messy and doesn't take up a whole table.  You don't need so many pieces of equipment either - felting needles (which are barbed and do hurt if you inadvertently get your fingers in the way), foam and wool, preferably natural and not dyed and in this case, merino is not quite as good to use as it is too soft and slippery, as natural undyed wool, which is a bit coarser and binds together more easily. We used Shetland wool for our menagerie.  At some points, my owl resembled a penguin, but it all came together in the end.  To bind the wool into shapes, you push the felting needle in and out of the wool into the foam (for basic shapes) and move the shape around to create a rough sausage which you then refine using the finer needle and just going into the wool, not the foam underneath.  It is much easier to do, than to explain!

 Feeling a bit more confident, I attempted a rabbit, or possibly a hare, as the ears were rather long.

 He did seem to develop a character as I went along.

 The pupils in his eyes aren't the same size as I did find putting little dots for details, such as eyes and noses, the trickiest part.

 The back view of my rabbit - he ended up looking quite sweet.

 The finished owl...or was that a brown penguin?

Here they are together, the owl looking rather startled to see such a huge rabbit in relation to himself!
I really enjoyed learning how to needle felt and can see opportunities for adding detail and texture to the surface of a piece of wet felted work, but I am not sure whether I shall make any more animals...although, never say never!