Collagraphy is a printmaking process in which materials are applied to a rigid plate such as Masonite, wood, or cardboard. I used Masonite for this one.
I used oil paint with a paintbrush to ink the plate. After the paint was applied to the plate I used a printing press to print onto wet paper. Some artists use rolling pins to press the image and I have seen a few try to use their car. The more pressure the more the details of the image will imprint into the paper.
For this piece I used leaves I found on my walks around Los
Angeles, beads, and cut up window screens secured onto the plate with molding paste. The possibilities are endless.
After the print dried I created a jungle theme using collage, tissue paper, acrylic paint, embroidery threads and watercolor paint.
The resulting print and collage makes me smile. It’s a very happy whimsical piece that I think would look amazing in a child’s room. This one comes framed.
It is interesting to see an artists process and progress. I painted a portrait of my husband over a few weeks. I used mostly alla prima painting techniques or wet paint into wet paint. I did let it dry between sessions. When you let oil paint dry between sittings it allows the artist to adjust the colors more easily and if you make a mistake you can wipe off your last layer! Attached you can see the progress of the painting from my initial sketch which I tried to block in the drawing and determine where my darkest darks were going to be. You can also notice that I changed the body shape a few times and adjusted the colors.
Painting out side from nature -or “plain air” is hard! This painting was done in Malibu and took about 2 hours. The hardest part is knowing what to paint. In a photo it’s obvious where the picture starts and ends- when you are painting from life there are no borders. A fun lesson I learned was that I could move objects or change the colors- to improve on nature. The palm tree in my painting was really way off to my left- the mountain range was more orange but adding blue/ purple showed that they were farther off into the distance.
