I am currently working on my latest collagraph commission, a picturesque landscape with long swaying grass and rolling hills. This week I decided to experiment printing with different media to create the impression of grass.
I began with creating a trial plate from an offcut of mountboard. I made a miniature landscape, cutting away the top layer of mountboard part way down the plate to give the look of an earthy hill top. My technique to peeling back the top layer involves first nicking the outline using my knife in order to make perforations. This makes for a more organic line when it is peeled away, compared to a cut edge, both have their place. For clean, refined lines, the cut edge is more appropriate but for hill tops and clouds, I find the rough edge works well.
I then began cutting the outline of grass blades into the surface of another offcut of mountboard. The inner shape was then carefully peeled away using my knife. The cut grass blade shapes were then glued onto my trial plate. I decided to do the same with shiny card in order that there would be more contrast between the card grass blade shapes and the plate beneath.
Looking for inspiration, I noticed my cat’s old and much loved scratching post, the top is ragged with shredded sisal rope. The texture of it looks perfect for giving the appearance of fine grass. I cut a piece of this off to try. Along the same lines I cut a couple of segments of garden twine. Cut short, I thought they would make effective grass tufts.
My printing experiment didn’t go perfectly to plan, but I thought I would share it anyway. Firstly I sealed my plate with watered down PVA, usually I use button polish for its durability; but wanting to run a speedy experiment, I chose not to on this occasion. The next step was inking the plate with caligo safe wash etching ink. Unfortunately the garden twine wasn’t sealed well enough and so it rolled up tightly when it was inked and didn’t allow for the ink to be wiped away much afterwards resulting in a dark smudge. The other media seemed to be better sealed. The shiny card wiped much easier than its competing matt finished mountboard grass blades. Both didn’t give much contast with the smooth background though, they gave more of an outline. The most effective texture I think, was the sisal rope. It holds ink between the fibres and doesn’t easily overwipe when removing the excess ink. It has more depth and detail than the other examples, though I realise it wasn’t a fair experiment with the garden twine not being sealed in enough. Perhaps I should have used a thin layer of acrylic paint to seal it in better before applying the pva wash. I often use paint to seal in media that is prone to becoming loose. As long as the paint layer is thin, I find the details tend to remain intact; even with the button polish layer appied over it. One surface texture I avoid applying paint over, is carborundum grit. I tried it once and it filled in all the crevices between the grains preventing the ink to collect densely within it as it usually does. The grit of course has a tendency to appear in occasional little specks here and there but I think this can often add a bit of interest. When it comes to sticking down the sisal on my collagraph plate I will likely seal it with thin acrylic, this will keep it sealed but also cover any surface PVA left over from the glueing process, the PVA seeming to repel the button polish sealant.
The ragged cat scratching post has since been refurbished with new sisal rope and is looking as good as new again! I have kept the old rope for use with my various printing projects.