Experimental Printmaking!

 

I've been doing a little bit of experimental printmaking! I've been using four collagraph printing plates and printing them on top of each other to create lots of texture and aging, its been a very interesting process and the most printing plates I've ever used in one go!

I wanted to add a little extra to my two plate collagraph image below of a ruined priory so I made a couple more crackle printing plates to print on top of it.

Here are all of the four printing plates inked up and ready for the experimentation to begin!

I printed them through the etching press one by one, starting with the black image of the ruined priory, trapping the paper each time under the roller so that I could keep the printing plates in the correct position every printing.

There was some very interesting results produced, one completely obscured the main priory print so I didn't think worked as well. It was also suggested to me that I try to print the crackle plates first and then the priory on top of those. It did produce a very interesting effect, see below, before the priory printing plate has been printed on top.

 A very abstract image was produced in the end, maybe slightly too many layers of crackle!

Some interesting textures were obtained depending on the order of the printing plates and I really like these two images produced.

And a lot of mess was made! 

I'm very inspired to do lots more experimental printmaking now too.

Clare x