Speaking of Etsy, I was asked recently to join Printsy, a collective of printmakers who feature their works in that site. It is an honour to be included so thank you to those who extended the invitation. There is some stellar printmaking by these artists featured both in the Printsy blog and in their individual Etsy shops.
This is a blind embossing that is titled Concentric. The relief plate was constructed from precut shapes of 4 mm thick Eskaboard that was glued to a base sheet. I then coated it with a couple of layers of varnish and set it aside overnight to dry. A piece of Somerset 250 gm rag paper was soaked and blotted then set over the constructed plate. It was pressed into the paper under the pressure of my etching press roller. It was then set under blotting sheets with the slight weight of a panel set over top and allowed to dry.
I have a basic white cut mat around the impression (same white as the rag paper) and set this into a square birch shadowbox frame.
The study below is a drypoint titled The Park printed using Graphic Chemical Graphite ink on fawn colour Stonehenge rag paper.
The next study is titled The Gistpoort. It is a drypoint with chine colle printed using oil base sepia ink on a cream colour tissue thin piece of kozo. This was adhered to a piece of Bockingford white rag paper with wheat paste during the run through the press rollers.
It is a study of a famous entrance way into the Abbey of our Lady complex in the old medieval city of Middelburg in the Netherlands. I had the honour of being able to visit the complex in Sept. 2003 and had taken some photos that I developed into a sketch and then transferred onto the plate with a drypoint needle.
The following study is titled Moonlight Garden. It is an intaglio print from a solar plate. The artwork positive that I exposed onto the plate was created using pen & ink and also a little noise (background dot texture) that was printed using my computer software onto the inkjet transparency and then scratched away in selected areas. The plate was inked with a mix of carbon black and prussian blue water soluble oil ink made by Caligo Inks from the UK. It was printed into damp and blotted 250 gm Arches Revere paper.
This is a collagraph titled The Stand.
I used a product called play-doh (remember this when you were a kid?) to create the raised elements.
Rolled strips of the medium were flattened and glued down to a cardboard substrate. As these dried the play-doh cracked and left indentations which were revealed when ink was wiped into the plate. However I sealed the plate first before inking using a couple layers of acrylic varnish. Akua inks were used and the image was printed onto Fabriano Rosapina rag paper.
