I've been working on some new collographs recently, based on childhood photos (aka, not trees!). I'm thinking about the visual quality of a memory, with different levels of focus, and also about the way a photo can unlock a memory. The prints above are based on a photograph of my sister and me by the Illinois River when we were little. They are printed from the same plate. One is fully inked and then hand-colored with colored India inks and a bit of gauche. The other was printed with a very, very small amount of residual ink from another printing (ghost print), so the embossing is what helps the nearly-invisible image come across. It was very hard to get a photo that captures this effect, and this was the best I could do.
The current press I'm using (Speedball Printmasters) is really not made for collographs/intaglio printing. I can make it work, but it's a physical struggle (it just doesn't want to turn with all that pressure!), and hard to print consistently. So, I'm really looking forward to the arrival of my Conrad press sometime in the next two months!
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