Take...Collagraph journey with me .... A tutorial..

It could all go wrong... but here goes..

'ROOK'

This is the story of one of my first collagraph prints...

It started with a rook in my garden.. I was so surprised to see it, needless to say no camera to hand.  So with a quick look on the internet I found a photo of a rook that I liked, printed it and traced it.

 

Then off to get samples of textured wall paper, you know the stuff.. the wallpaper that no one wants... I now have samples for the world, and cannot walk past a wallpaper aisle without taking a few samples .  I often wonder what the the staff think of me.....  'A wallpaper bag lady'   I wonder if they think that I decorate my walls with the stuff... Yuck!....... I think that I am doing the DIY shops a service, by taking some samples and recycling it... That is my story and I'm sticking to it.

Anyway, I diverse.... On a piece of stiff card I turned the rook over an placed the tracing on the card and re-drew the rook so that the drawing was transferred onto the cardboard.  Remembering that when it is printed the image will be reversed.

Next the fun bit cutting up that awful wall paper into usable shapes.  This is not as easy as it looks, decisions, decisions... I gradually made some and the rook began to take shape gluing them in place as I went.  This was a mistake...

 *Reminder to oneself - Decide on the bulk of the pieces first before using the glue pot.... It is a pain the the proverbial butt to change things around when the glue has dried.

 

When my rook was almost finished I cut out some tree shapes and lifted off the top layer of paper, my wonderful instruction book says that this is worth a try...

Collagraphs by Brenda Hartill and Richard Clarke 

Then I glued on some old lace that I got from a charity shop and added the rooks foot to come down over the lace.

 

Then on with the button polish, this stuff was a nightmare to find and extreemly expensive.

I have since found out that water based matt varnish and PVA does the same job and costs a lot less. I will give them a try when I run out of the button polish.

 Close up shows the different textures

At last a print, I will take a better photo and a better print when my new press is up and running.

I love doing collagraph but have so much to learn, If anyone has any advice, all is welcome, I appreciate all the help I can get.

If on the other hand anyone would like to ask me a question please just ask.