Basil at Warringah Printmakers March 2022

The Warringah Printmakers invited me up to do another workshop for them last week. I actually did two x 2 day workshops in collagraph making and printing this time, each with groups of ten eager and fabulous artists. I am becoming increasingly interested in making collagraphs, as material prices rise and availability becomes more scarce. These humble cardboard and mixed media plates are inexpensive to make with found and collected materials from the home and studio; yet extremely sophisticated and crisp when printed intaglio on an etching press. A couple of yeas ago, BHE hosted a workshop given by Sarah Ross-Thompson from Scotland in her speciality: collagraph, and we were all impressed by the way she cut into her blocks to create tone and line as much as she adhered/collaged elements onto the block. This created plates which were so much easier to ink, as they were quite thin and streamlined without knobbly plant matter and bike sprockets attached to them! I have passed this lesson on, I hope, and can vouch for most of the plates at these workshops being easy to ink up, crisp and sophisticated!