Second print pulled from the Queen of the Night’s hand collagraph plate. The first print was completely useless – there was no definition of the hand at all. On this second attempt, I wiped back most of the ink from the hand and it’s somewhat more successful but still not good enough. My inking technique could use some work! Was very pleased, however, with the textured areas, especially the crocheted ‘crown’ bracelet. It was done very quickly on a small hook using fairly robust cotton thread (e.g. Knit-cro-sheen). The canvas-like area is scrim, a kind of very loose woven cloth used to clean printmakers’ plates.
Having lost a lot of definition in the hand, I attempted to ‘build up’ the surface of the hand area with PVA glue over the next week, but:
- I was too heavy-handed with the glue, not allowing it to dry properly in between layers and
- The varnish applied previously stopped the glue adhering properly. The result was a creepy PVA hand outline that slid off the plate.
I also took an impression of the plate without ink onto black paper whilst the glue hand was still in place. The results were encouraging, although one side of the paper was ruined by sticking to the creepy glue hand before it detached itself.
