First week of Collagraph

Before my first class of collagraph, I had to make a practice/experimental print beforehand and this is what it looked like:

The cardboard I used was the lid part of a shoebox, and I intentionally left the outer shapes as it is, because I thought it would make more interesting imagery and pattern than plain rectangular cardboard. For the materials, I wanted to see how the texture of the gauze will show on the print, so I mainly used gauze for this. The theme of this was love, yet a rather gory and literal way of expressing it. The gauze as a medical supply and symbolic of physical pain and injury was thought to have a connection with hurtful love, and I attempted to convey its fragility by using ripped and cut gauze. I folded the gauze in a way that shows the outline of the heart's form, and I used staplers and threads to secure and sew the shape. I also added some flower stickers to see how much difference in texture it makes with the cardboard.

This was when I used PVA glue to glue the materials onto the cardboard.

Then I used a hair dryer to dry the glue faster.

During that, I realised the surface of the glue hardened, but not the inner glue. I touched it and dragged it around and it made weird wave patterns. It reminded me of some kind of texture of an organ, so I left it there. (This photo was taken after the shellac was applied)

Then I applied the shellac with a brush over the print. This was the first layer, and I forgot to take pictures after it was layered with a shellac.

These were the results after the trial plate was printed:

This was the first print I did, however, it had too much ink on the paper.

The second trial print went better with the red colour highlighting the heart.

When the print was made, I was surprised to see the patterns of the cardboard to also print out. It created a nice consistent pattern across on the outer edge. I printed on a larger Sommerset paper so the zigzag edge of the cardboard box was visible, although I was scared I’ll muck up my expensive paper. My lecturer commented on the blank shapes on the print could be printed in a different colour and it could create a much different meaning and imagery to it. She also encouraged me to explore the medium of cardboard and suggested the symbolic meaning of shoe boxes as something we use to carry our belongings to a place. Artists who have used cardboard boxes, such as Jannia KounIellis and Doris Salcedo were researched to see how they have explored this material as well. I was originally planning to focus my prints on landscapes, but that topic was very intriguing to me that I’m considering doing one on the idea of belonging.