I did an afternoon of experiments at The Workers Gallery last week, trying out different combinations of inks and papers on a Gelli Arts gelatine printing plate. I want to print papers for collage. I did some basic experiments a few weeks ago and I wanted to do something a bit more advanced to see what the technique is capable of.
I used two different types of pigment – Caligo Safewash ink (oil-based) and Liquitex paint (acrylic) and two papers to print on – Daler Rowney cartridge paper and Hosho Japanese tissue. I also used ripped tissue paper and fruit net bags as stencils to add variation to colour and texture. I took two prints from each inking – a full colour one and a paler ‘ghost secondary image.
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- Caligo plate 1 full-colour image on Hosho paper
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- Caligo plate 1 ghost image on Hosho paper
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- Caligo plate 2 full-colour image on Daler Rowney paper
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- Caligo plate 2 ghost image on Daler Rowney paper
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- Liquitex plate full colour image on Daler Rowney paper
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- Liquitex plate ghost image on Daler Rowney paper
The Caligo inks had greater translucency and depth but in future I’ll try the Liquitex with a medium to thin it out a bit and see if I can get a more translucent paint. I prefer the Hosho paper, it gives much more luminosity than the Daler Rowney cartridge. The stencils – tissue and fruit net – worked really well and it was exciting when I took the paper off the plate to see what randomness endued.
