Tiger Print

Back in July last year I was in my usual place by the tiger enclosure at Dudley Zoo when the tigers suddenly started mating! The male tiger strutted off looking very proud of himself and the female rolled over onto her back and just looked very chilled and relaxed. I managed to get quite a few photos of her and knew I would have to do some artwork featuring such an unusual pose for a tiger!

I did a couple of acrylic paintings featuring the very happy tiger:

Happy Tiger - Acrylic Painting

Happy Tiger 2 - Acrylic Painting

I also had to depict her in a collagraph print too.  A collagraph print is a print created from a card plate made by adding glue, paint, enamel etc. This holds the ink in varying degrees and is then printed through the intaglio process.

Sadly the original printing plate (which took hours to make!) warped in the printing press due to some of the paint being too thick, so that one had to be binned. This is the second collagraph printing plate just finished and ready to be printed:

Lots of blue/black intaglio ink is wiped all over the printing plate.

And then wiped off again! The ink stays in the textured parts of the printing plate and wipes off the smoother parts which will print lighter or white.

The printing plate is then placed onto the intaglio press and a slightly damp piece of paper is put on top. all of this is covered with a blanket and then put through the printing press which forces the ink off the printing plate onto the paper, leaving the paper slightly embossed.

The finished collagraph print, framed and ready for exhibition.

I decided to enter her into the Wolverhampton Society of Artists new Centenary Exhibition at Wolverhampton Art Gallery and luckily she was accepted! 

Also I was very shocked and proud to receive the first prize for the Selection Panel Choice and got to meet the Mayor of Wolverhampton who presented me with a certificate and book.

The exhibition is on until February 16th and well worth a look and you can see a very relaxed looking tiger!

Clare xx