Helen draws

Tag: colografía

  • Collagraph of a Mallorcan ‘ferreret’

    Collagraph of a Mallorcan ‘ferreret’

    Following my first attempt at creating a collagraph plate, I decided the next print would be of an endangered ‘ferreret’ (well, two), which is a tiny (max. 4cm long) frog endemic to Mallorca.

    It exists only in the Serra de Tramuntana mountains and represents the struggle of local fauna to survive in the face of invasive species and other significant threats to their habitat.

    One of the challenges of this block was creating the markings found on the frogs’ skin. As I had no idea whether my approach would work, it was (again) pretty exciting to pull the print and see what the result was.

    On the first print, there were a few mall shellac shards around the image, so I either painted the coats too thick or the pressure was slightly too high. But I was otherwise really happy with how it turned out.

  • First attempt at a collagraph

    After my collagraph tutorial with Marian Haf, I couldn’t wait to have a go at putting into practice all the steps she’d explained. Naturally, my chosen subject was a chicken (new arrivals in the garden at home).

    The photos below show each stage of creating the collagraph plate, including the initial drawing, scratching details into the mountboard, sealing the plate with shellac, inking up and a resulting early print.

    As well as printing a lovely one-colour version in Prussian Blue (a favourite colour), I also had a go (under Julio’s guidance) at creating a two-colour version using the à la poupée technique. This uses a ball of fabric to add different colours to a single intaglio plate.

    It was intriguing and exciting to peel back and reveal the first print after putting it through the press, as I had no idea what to expect. But I was really pleased with the result and loved the idea of using simple (and relatively ‘safe’) materials to create the plate.