Storms End

Storms End   17x17cm watercolour on paper   ©2015Lisa Le Quelenec

With all the printmaking going on I have made a little time for painting too. A small painting inspired by the end of some wild weather. This painting is available at my Etsy store here

Beach study

Beach finds colour palette

A walk on the beach in Jersey to see my folks turned up these lovely finds. Such an inspiring collection of colours and textures.

St. Aubins Bay - Jersey Channel Islands   ©2015Lisa Le Quelenec

Print making Day 5 collagraphs

The last day of the course came around far too soon for my liking. Now we had practiced a few different processes we could choose what we wanted to do for the final session. I choose to concentrate on collagraphs as I hadn't had much time the previous session and I wanted more practice at inking up the plates whilst there was people around to ask for advice.

Blind embossment of plate 2   ©2015Lisa Le Quelenec

I started with a blind embossing (printing without ink) of plate 2 (from the previous post) on dampened NOT watercolour paper. The plate was given a fine coating of French Chalk to stop it from laminating the paper to the plate before going through the press.

This plate was made using a mixture of plastic lace and cotton lace. I like the details that are picked up and think it would have worked even better if I had used a smooth paper. It just goes to show the amount of pressure the press is using as the lace on the right really was a very fine cotton piece and yet every detail has come out.

A/P I of plate 2   ©2015Lisa Le Quelenec

For the first inking of the plate I used a relief technique trying to only apply the colour to the raised surfaces and keeping the indentations free to show the white of the paper. Strictly speaking there is too much ink left on the plate when I put it through the press so the image is quite dark but it does have a nice contrast with the light. I just like images a bit more subtle in tone...

A/P II of plate 2   ©2015Lisa Le Quelenec

Next I applied the ink with a toothbrush working it in to all the nooks and crannies using a more intaglio method of inking . A piece of scrim was used to wipe off the excess ink and finally a piece of tissue paper and a cotton bud to polish up a couple of highlights. But still......too much ink left on the plate! I hadn't taken off enough ink on the right hand cotton lace. The plastic lace is much easier to wipe ink off than the cotton, something I have made a mental note off for future reference.

A/P III of plate 2   ©2015Lisa Le Quelenec

For experiments sake I ran it through the press a second time without adding any more ink. In some ways I prefer the more smokey faded images of a second run through the press.


Comparing the two methods of inking a collagraph plate is interesting and I think an experiment later using the two methods with different colours combined will make for interesting passages in an image.

Collagraph plate 2   ©2015Lisa Le Quelenec

This was the plate after all that inking and printing a little cleaned up.

A/P I   beach study   collagraph   ©2015Lisa Le Quelenec

beach study   collagraph plate  ©2015Lisa Le Quelenec

This was my attempt at playing with an image using sand, glue and packing tape for textures. Whilst the print isn't really anything to speak of I really like the plate. Maybe I will work into it as a mixed media piece. Alas I ran out of time to do more. I need much more practice at this and have already signed up for the autumn term - something to look forward to.

Thank you Jan for a great course I have thoroughly enjoyed it. So much so that I have signed up for the Autumn term!