Solar plate from drawing….

I made this solar plate from a drawing I did at the Australian Museum. At first I traced it onto architect’s drafting film, the way I did with these pomegranates. Unfortunately I over-worked it, which was so obvious because the original was much freer. I threw it away and instead did a photocopy onto acetate.

This has been inked up in black with a raw sienna beak, then masked across the bird while a blue colour roll was put on, then the blend was rolled over the top. It did start with a red crest, but didn’t really show by the time the print was made.

Two more royal collographs

Two more collographs from my British Royals series, others of which can be seen  here and here. The one in the green dress is Mary Queen of Scots. She was pretty scary looking when I did the first proof. However, I then added some Matt Gel Medium to her face, with a little Burnt Sienna added. That meant that I could see her features & what they were likely to print. Previously I’d just used Gel or Impasto, which was a bit silly of me. Mary’s face, hair and hands were inked up in Raw Sienna, then  the dress in green and the chair and underskirt in blue.  I did a yellow colour roll and then a blend, of which I had the reddish- brown at the top. I then wiped back her face and hands.

Ann of Cleves was printed on a different day, with different colours on the rollers, but still a yellow for the first roll, then a blend with pinkish-red at the bottom. She has been inked up initially in Prussian Blue and Sanguine. ‘In the flesh’ the sanguine looks marvellous.

Printmaking is over for the year now. What a shame. I will miss it.

More solar plates

As I said, the photocopy situation is solved. A friend suggested we go to COFA Digital Print and Copy where their business is printing and they have properly maintained machines and a very helpful lady who actually understands what solar plates are. It was a breeze and a fraction of the cost of Officeworks. So I had some great new images to print on Sunday. There were NO issues making the plates. They exposed perfectly.

So now I’m the Bin Lady. I must say I think my bin images come out best. This top one is inked up a la poupee and has a very faint yellow colour roll.

The next one is not a bin, surprisingly but some pipe-things that were very bright yellow in real life. I did two versions of this with a colour roll with a blend. The other one is red at the front going to yellow at the back.  In both cases of course, the cool colour is receding.

Then next I have one of my favourite images – the bent bin. This bin actually is green, so I inked it up in green & the rest of the plate in burnt sienna. Then I did the colour roll on top with the blend echoing the green on the right.

The last one is these tube-things. Just inked up in black with a colour roll of red to yellow. These things were very red and rusty in real life, so next time I’ll ink them up in something with a lot of red in it.

Solar plate etching

The thing about solar plate etching is that the photocopying is so important.  Earlier in the year, when I did the course, I did the photocopying in the office. However when I looked at the acetate outside in the light, many of them were unusable, because the photocopier just wasn’t up to scratch.  This time I went to Officeworks. Mistake. You can’t do your own photocopying and you can’t stand over them to see if they have the right settings.

This was the first time I’d made solar plates at home by myself, so it was a bit scary. Luckily I read the instructions and got a clean piece of muslin out for if the plates stayed sticky in patches when I washed them.  Sure did – well two out of three. The bin at the top was less dark and it came out fine, but the others were not so good. However I like the wheels one, so I’ll make another plate of that one – do another acetate.

These were printed at the end of August and all that day we did viscosity printing, with stencils. The top one has had the centre part masked and a very light yellow colour roll, then a blend on a different roller. The ‘wheels’ has had all the background masked while the yellow roll was done. The bins at the bottom had the centre bin masked while a blue  colour roll was put on. This plate was made back in March and I’d previously inked it up a la poupee.

I was printing again on Sunday, and have the photocopying issue solved, and finding making the plates really easy. Decided I prefer to do a la poupee, even though it’s slower. All these images are from the Heritage Shipyard or ithe surrounding shipyards.

Solar plate etching

A couple of weeks ago I went to David Wilsher’s exhibition on an old ferry at Blackwattle Bay. David, who teaches drawing at the Sydney Community College was successful in gaining a residency on this old ferry. What a treasure trove of images in that area. I took many photos on the day, but the sun was high in the sky, and a week later we went to take photos at 9 a.m.

The last two Saturdays, I did a solar plate etching course with Seraphina Martin. Fantastic! Last week we made four plates and this week we printed them in various ways. The first and second ones  have been inked up a la poupee (different colour inks on different areas).  They are also both photographic, with a bit of Photoshop, then after they were printed onto acetate I worked into them with a stylus.

The last one has been inked up  in a dark brown  and viscosity printed. The first colour roll (the blue) was masked with torn paper, then it was rolled with a blend.  This one was drawn onto architects drafting film with Liquid Pencil, then some stronger darks were put in with a very thick propelling pencil.

I am really pleased with these three. Now I know the process I can’t wait to get some more solar plates and make some at home.

Mary and Henry – collographs

Last Sunday we had another Printfest day, with teacher Seraphina Martin, viscosity printing collographs. Here are two from my new series of Royals. These two are the ones I’m most pleased with.

Making the collograph plate of Queen Mary was the most interesting. I used Impasto Medium to paint her face, and as I was doing it, it became obvious to me that Queen Mary’s bone structure is so like Princess Anne’s.

I can remember the day Queen Mary died. I was in the ‘office’ of my father’s furniture shop, and he explained to me that the reason that there was only dirges on the radio was because the old Queen had died. How times change!

But the other interesting thing about that is that my fathers ‘office’ was also used for furniture finishing, and it smelt of wood shavings and shellac. Now I am using shellac to seal my collograph plates – we’ve gone full circle.

Henry looks evil, doesn’t he? I’ve got another one where he has a green birthmark- it’s worse. I found by trial and error that the portrait ones work best if the faces are wiped back after the colour rolls.  I didn’t do quite so many prints last week, as I inked up the portrait ones a la poupee (see glossary) instead of inking up the whole plate with the same colour.  So I DO have more to show you, but no time to scan them at the moment. It’s been a busy week.

Fortunately Seraphina has extended the Printfest (yippee, yippee) and will be having another day late in September. I’ll try to finish my plate of Queen Victoria for that one. She’s wearing the same tiara as Mary.