Weekly Brayer May 1 - 8

[bridog]

To start this weeks brayer entry I will refer you to my blog (link below in magenta) where you can read about and view the wonderful work created by participants in workshop I gave this past Sunday. We explored two techniques, relief block and collagraph and this had a non-toxic focus.

Also here is the collagraph plate I created to use for the demo component of the workshop and the resulting single colour print from the plate. I am planning to do a colour version of this soon.
It is an orchid that is part of the household plant collection here and made a great model for a quick study. I used mainly paper collage to construct the plate, some tearing of the surface of the mat board and mark making with pointed xacto blade. Plate was sealed under 3 layers of shellac and allowed a good week to dry before apply the ink and printing onto the Canson Edition rag paper.

[connorpastel]

Wow! That is an impressive print!

I have started to explore printmaking. Unfortunately, there is no available access to any printmaking equiments here outside of the art schools and no teacher to consult. Hence, to date, I have explored monotype with gouache and watercolour on acrylic sheet.

I might try screenprinting in the near future! Is it possible to screenprint with watercolour and gouache since my intended print size will not likely be larger than an A4 paper?

Looking forward to this thread..........

[bridog]

thanks!
Happy to have you in the forum and hopefully you can find some answers to your questions but also find very useful info. with regards to your printmaking endeavors.
I understand your frustration wanting to learn printmaking techniques but not having a lot of resources in your immediate region. However there are lots of online tutorials (check out You Tube by typing in any printmaking medium in search and there are usually a wealth of videos posted).
In response to your question about screen printing using watercolor or gouache. You might have more success using watercolor as I think gouache is a bit thick and may clog the screen mesh quickly. From what I have read you paint on the watercolor pigment first and then flood coat the screen with a water based transparent medium which will activate the w/c pigment and transfer it to the paper underneath when you pass a squeegee blade over the open stencil areas.
here are a couple of links that might be useful
http://sanyaglisic.com/blog/?p=1161
http://www.nontoxicprint.com/silkscreenprinting.htm

I believe many moons back I tried also mixing dry pigment powder into a thick gelatinous wall paper paste mixture and printed this through a paper stencil on stretched screen.

[Diane Cutter]

Incredible... I get Groupon notices for Albuquerque because I'm up there often enough to take advantages of those kinds of offers. What to my surprise but New Grounds Printmaking Workshop & Gallery just posted an incredible offer. I bought two 5-hour one-on-one sessions... What a great way to get up to speed on new printmaking techniques and/or perfecting others. I have until December to use them... I am so exciting!!! I'd done a one-on-one with Regina some years back and loved it.

Diane

[LynnM]

Wonderful print, Brian! should be a good workshop.

Great opportunity, Diane, wish I could be a fly on the wall!

I bought my copy of the City of the World today, can't wait to get it. I wish I could have continued with it....but there's always 2 years from now, I bet she'll do another one.

[Diane Cutter]

I got mine, too. I'm looking forward to reading more detail on the 'why' people chose what they did.

Diane

[inugie]

I got my City of the World prints!!! absolutely stunning - now I just need to figure out what to do with all that art - I don;t have a big enough wall to hang them all together! I'm hoping to get them framed and then organise a few exhibitions in the local libraries and town hall. great project and many thanks to all the hard working people!