Elaine d'Esterre

Feminist Visual Artist – Paintings, Mixed Media and Etchings

Category Archives: Collagraph


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Old and New Images

At Muddy’s She Shed during the weekend Surf Coast Arts Trail event, the studio, temporarily transformed into a gallery, had a steady stream of viewers on both days. Interested participants created gelatine prints using Anglesea flora. Several items that included Maggi Jean’s ceramics, small sculptures – (a small elephant herd) and artists’ books – ( Anglesea flora and seaweeds) found good homes as well as Evie Wood’s poetry books, cards, watercolours and an acrylic still life titled Pink Lady Interior, 2016.

 

Point Addis Daisy, 2016 by Magaret Jean.

Point Addis Daisy, 2016 by Margaret Jean.

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Pink Lady Interior, 2016, acrylic, 40×40 cm by Evie Wood.

Several of my digital prints were also purchased. The oldest had been part of my PhD exegesis, titled Natalie (Demeter/Persephone) and the most recent was a reproduction of a viscosity printed collagraph that started as an experiment with the viscosity printing technique but also required additional chine-colle as a way to give the composition some space and atmosphere.

Natalie ( Demeter / Peresophone), 2016, ( original 1995, intaglio, ink and wash, 98 X 66 cm.)

Snowfields 2, 2016, viscosity print and hand made paper, 50x35cm

Snowfields 2, 2016, viscosity print and hand made paper, 50x35cm


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Abstract Etching Collage

A moment when torn remnants of failed intaglio prints came together mentally. Something drew me away from my planned oil paintings and diverted me back to pieces of an old ‘jigsaw’. Unarticulated at the time, compositions that slipped away from my mind but returned and demanded unexpected attention.

The first image titled Leaving Lake Mungo, 2016 in diptych format, consists of a collagraph with an image of a dune that joins to an intaglio from which a figure is pulling away to merge into obscurity beneath layers of chine-colle and pieces of collage.

The second image titled Planning to Dive, 2016 refers to an older series of images titled The Diver, 2011,  an allegory about a type of creative process. it consists of intaglio, collage and torn intaglio, transparent paper and pianola paper with punctured holes as well as a piece of pastel paper with frottage.

The Goddess Return, 2016 consists of  a collagraph on top of which sits a small intaglio joined by transparent paper over silver leaf. The goddess image ‘joins the sky and earth’.

Leaving Lake Mungo, 2016Planning to Dive, 2016IThe Goddess Return


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Maggi Jean’s Exhibits at Muddy’s She-Shed Anglesea

Collagraph and Viscosity Printing

I am in Muddy’s She-Shed, an original boat shed converted into an art studio  where Maggi Jean’s sensitive, poetic and thoughtful artwork is displayed. I love the way, within in her iconography, she used a basic shape that on one hand evokes the depiction of a mountain and at the same time by juxtaposing a similar shape above it the viewer can see the shape of a wave.

The statement beside the image describes her intent.

Heatwave, 2014, collagraph with viscosity printing
Maggi Jean’s tatement

The technique in which a collagraph constructed from bark arranged onto a plate of cardboard and then shellaced to seal it and then  printed by way of the viscosity method, enhances the imagery because the two textured  basic shapes are read by the viewer differently; one as wave and the other as a mountain. Bark texture reads as both mountain and water.

Gelatine Printing 

Gelatine prints can be arranged as sculpture as well as make beautiful books.  I like the hanging sculpture almost a relief-like mobile that can hang beneath a framed print.

I combined one titled Brown Algae by Maggi Jean with one of my etchings, inserting the print under the frame. Image book invading imprisoned framed etching under perspex!

 

Opened gelatine print
Book form in hanging mode
Inserted under perspex frame

My etching titled Reflection, 2011 about the point Roadknight rock form, sand, rock pools and reflections is now accompanied by Brown Algae . The sea weed textures enhance the image. By placing seaweed on top of a gelatine ‘plate’ rolled with colour the artist places paper over all and then hand prints with paper.

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Behind the Scenes at LANDforms Exhibition

My favourite gallery
Natalie Utmar
Nat’s graphics
More graphics
Music by Gavin Cross

Many friends behind the scenes ensured that all preparations for my LANDforms Exhibition ran smoothly. Apologies for my very average photography in this blog.

Amazing amounts of organisation: labels, “Artist Statement”, “CV” and blurbs placed on core board, the catalogue accompanied by a list of my artworks in “Public Collections” as well as the packing, transporting and then the hanging of 35 items, are thanks to Natalie Utmar and and Gavin Cross who also arranged the lighting and highlighting of the paintings and etchings.

The gallery provided input from their curator, Patricia Goldby whose suggestions about artwork placement, lighting and the finer points about presentation were invaluable. (More about this in my next blog.)

Added to everyone’s focussed efforts,  the gallery committee members were helpful and collaboration at all stages ran smoothly.

Preparations for Saturday’s Opening, October 24  from 4 – 6pm are under way. In gallery 1, guitar soloist Gavin Cross will be performing a mixture of Classical, Latin and Jazz compositions to add to our enjoyment as well as tapas, olives and nibbles and the wine sourced from the Wolseley Winery situated in the Surf Coast hinterland behind Bells Beach and Anglesea at Paraparap, as well as bubbly and mineral water.  Hopefully good music combined with wine, food, conversation and the artwork contribute an entertaining and stimulating afternoon.


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LANDforms Preview (Mungo cont.)

Bed of Lake Mungo
Evening at Lake Mungo, 2015

The oil painting titled Red Earth Trajectory at Mungo 2 refers to Mungo’s pink sand, the deposition of red soil from nearby hills and erosion by wind and water. Bed of Lake Mungo and Evening at Lake Mungo are collagraphs from the same plate but with part of the displaced print moved to the left in Bed of  Lake Mungo and chine-colle and collage combined with metal leaf in Evening at Lake Mungo. Ive just noticed how Evening at Lake Mungo, 2015 resembles Igneous 1, 2004 on the invite. Basic shapes are there but slightly rearranged even though one is a large oil and the other a small collagraph. Gone around in a circle!!


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LANDforms Exhibition Preview (Mungo)

Bleeding Sand
Beneath the Sand
Weathering

Three more from LANDforms continuing with works about Lake Mungo. Weathering and Beneath the Sand were accidents. They started as collagraphs using tissue paper and glue placed onto a zinc plate. I used the zinc plate hoping that it would be more durable than cardboard or wood but paste and Bondcrete gradually wore down after many experiments. After taking a print I like to drip gum turps and a drop of oil onto the inked remnants left on the plate and then take a ghost print. Weathering was the result consisting of small bits of gold leaf, hardly visible, that mingled with the ink, oil and turps. More luck than good management was how the liquid ingredients stayed within the print of the plate’s edge.

Beneath the Sand began as a failed viscosity print over which I incorrectly placed gold leaf which peeled of in places revealing reverse viscosity ink layering. Two layers of transparent paper allowed the main shape to print in silhouette making the shape beneath resemble a below surface rock conglomeration.

I like the nuanced and layered Bleeding Sand print, and while less happy accident it depicts the multi layered types of process that occur within the dune, Rain and wind carry silt from low red hills turning the lunette pink through seepage. Ink was combined with chine-colle and silver leaf on red paper.

I double printed the collagraph plate revealing and obscuring parts of the prints as I hoped to emphasise the vertical downward movement of water and silt.

Many images of Mungo began with a frottage taken from a landform at the site. When I return to my studio I incorporate it into a larger composition. I wondered if making the collagraph in a way that inadvertently resembled a frottage got the impetus moving as I usually put frottage into oil painting or mixed media rather than into a printmaking technique?.


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Collagraphs about Mungo

Red Seepage into the Dunes of Mungo, 2015
Line of Sight across the Dunes of Mungo, 2015, collagraph, drypoint and chine colle, 25×40 cm

Collage from previous etchings are mixed into the second collagraph, whereas, in the first, I combined a torn collagraph element with another piece of collagraph. This grey piece of rectangular shaped BFK Rives printmaking paper, obtained from a ghost washy print that picked up some ink remnant left on the plate, resembled part of Mungo’s terrain between the red dust bearing hills and the pink dunes.

In the second image the soft grey area was printed from another washy (drop of gum turps. and a little oil ) ghost print which being very liquid spread across to the edge of page as it passed under the roller. Then I combined two pieces of torn image, one consisting of an intaglio and the other a drypoint on perspex from past leftovers, into ‘seeing heads’. The beige surround alludes to viewing as tho through a frame.

I was trying to depict two types of vision into a single image. One head is sightless and ‘sees’ as if from below the landscape and ‘becomes’ the landscape, and the other sighted head and torso view the landscape through and with perspectival visual construction.


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Mungo continued

Directions through Sand, 2015
Bleeding Sand

These two images began with collagraph prints. The barely visible print in the first is concealed beneath two collaged rectangles consisting of silver leaf on red and black backgrounds. Shreds of print on semi transparent handmade paper then overlay parts of the leaf and allow part of the image beneath to ghost through.

I used a similar method with the second plate. The red collagraph print covers printed metal leaf placed on the first print that just shows through, visible in the lower section of the composition in the centre of which is a rectangular element of the imagery consisting of a silver leaf rectangle placed on a red surface.

I was trying to capture an idea of weathering process that shape the dunes and am ambivalent about the first image that may look better as a horizontal image. It began in horizontal format so… looks a bit too regular and structured maybe?

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Mungo continued

I used the same zinc plate with a collagraph glued to its surface to begin a variable edition by arranging the plate, chine colle and metal leaf into different compositions where I explored different aspect of Lake Mungo.

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Mungo

Mungo, 2015, collagraph and chine colle

Mungo, 2015, collagraph and chine colle on BFK Rives, 28×14 cm

Another version of landscape elements at Lake Mungo in printmaking media that consists of a roll up, chine colle and collagraph.

I returned to collagraph but thought I’d try it on metal plates instead of the more malleable wood or cardboard. However metal leaf as a part chine colle was not compatible as both attracted each other except in this case where the metal leaf had already been placed onto paper.

The process started unexpectedly when I had been working on a viscosity method of printing and had a ghost print left on my roller that looked more interesting than the viscosity print so I rolled it onto a sheet of BFK Rives 300 gsm and let it dry.

I noticed a square sample of gold leaf on red paper that I’d put away for later that matched the ghost roll.  So the bright yellow of the roll left over from a viscosity print had picked up a red layer from the viscosity print and melded into the yellow layer.

I made a collagraph with scrunched tissue paper and carborundum in the shape of a dune glued and sealed onto a metal plate.

I inked the plate with blue black and raw umber with plenty of extender (maybe more would have lightened it a little). The plan  for the darker layer was to tone down the layers beneath and tie together the gold leaf on the chine colle and the rather cool almost acid background yellow.

I love the art of the East and its textural nuance with which this prints seems to have an unexpected affinity but I’m not sure whether it quite captures the moonscape of Mungo. It does something else I think perhaps pointing me in another direction?


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Collagraph proof: printmaking by Jill Giles

I would like to introduce Jill Giles and one of her artworks. We are fellow printmaker at the Anglesea Art House and when she experimented with plaster of paris on perspex to form a collagraph, that is the combination of relief and intaglio on a single surface, we all took notice.

Collagraph perspex plate with plaster of Paris and metal paint

An aerial view of Lake Eyre

An aerial view of Lake Eyre, first proof

The first image is one of the plate from which the print is taken and the second is the first proof that is a guide to how the image can be altered or improved. After taking this proof Jill added lines to the plate using metallic paint that may print in second proof as an embossed part of the texture. However as we were working away and Jill pulled this first proof I was excited by how well she had captured an aerial view of Lake Eyre as it dried out. We all got a buzz.

Collagraph is perhaps the most versatile of printmaking surfaces and its hard to know where to start but this technique gives an immediate, tactile way in. A perspex surface is often used for drypoint mark making with implements or by using an electric drill strong enough to gouge or scratch into the hard perspex surface.  In particular this plate on perspex is constructed using plaster of Paris which lends itself to creating geological, organic textures. Looking forward to the next stage.


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First Anglesea Art House Printmakers’ Exhibition

The slideshow presentation of the first group exhibition of the printmakers who work, study and experiment with tutor Lee Powell at the Anglesea Art House.

Apologies for some of my photography but the different techniques are clearly visible. In due course I would like to feature the work of the artists separately where we can explore the different ways of printing and how they augment the ideas behind them.

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