Third week of Collagraphy (part 2)

This became the last week of printing with this collagraph since I also had to print another large-scale work and I was running out of time. Before I move on to the next collagraph, I decided to put a bit of colour in the monotone imagery as I did with my trial print.

I used cool blue, yellow and white inks in the ratio of 2:6:2.

This plate was inked previously and was run through the printing press once. I wanted to see how much ink was off the plate, exploring the element of tone.

This time, I inked the other side of the coin that was outside the plate. It shows an image of a crane flying, which I thought would be more interesting and beautiful to see printed as a collagraph. Another reason was to vary it with the coin placed inside the cardboard, which just says “100 won”. Like last time, I rubbed the ink on with a toothbrush and placed it on the printing press.

This is the result of the second print!

I loved to see the colour popping out of the monotone image, which also varied from the last print as it is clearly lighter in tone. I loved the little crane detail and how more objects were printed darker and thus easier to see in contrast to the light background. I also rubbed the flower petals harder so they come out almost white. However, I do regret placing the plate too left on the paper for this print.

As was printing, I thought this print was almost like a map of my soul, navigating my childhood memories in bird’s eye view. The phrase “Map of the Soul” is also the name of one of BTS’ album title, which I loved listening to in my last junior year, so it was enjoyable to think that I was creating my own map of soul. Furthermore, it was inspiring to utilise the preserved items again in years as a part of a printmaking material, something completely different from its normal use.