From Books to a Print.

Today I am so very proud of the achievements my group of five ladies have produced with their first serious printmaking effort. It was back in October I wrote about the books we were making and each had cut and printed a small lino as decoration for a page. During the process it was discussed and decided that we should, and could we create a collaboration print from each other's plates.
 I organized a day to hire the use of a very good friend's studio and press for the occasion. As usual we self catered for morning tea and afternoon tea (food being secondary to creating art) and had lunch at nearby centre.
After introductions were made, coffee/ tea consumed and conversation halted it was into some lessons on how to use the press a first for everyone.
They are very keen and willing learners which just made my job so much easier and even asked what could they do to help.
As they are dedicated scrapbook people and sewing for families their skills were honed to a degree that explaining something new was no problem at all.
Once we had it all set up I ran a sample print through on clean newspaper for pressure testing and to see how we felt about the arrangement of the six single plates. This made it so much easier to make adjustments before our final decision. Considering there was five viewpoints it went rather well with everyone happy to play with ideas.

As I came around the car to enter the studio this chap gave me the giggles but I think he was destined for a 'new home' of sorts at a later date.

One of our first arrangements.

Pre printed  pieces  after discussions re negative space and positioning with torn paper prints. Still unsure we asked my friend and another lady who arrived for a visit for their opinions. This proved to be very valuable and presented us all with different ways of pre planning a large collaboration before hand. 

So having decided on an image to everyone's agreement it was time to get out the tools to change the plates and for me to make a new registration.

The end result and we all have two prints each to play with and again each artists has different views on framing and  signing. Because they are personal prints and not editions for exhibition purposes I am not necessarily sticking to the traditional way of edition, titling and dating. We are meeting to talk about this and I will just advise and let them make their own decision.

Part of the idea to do the large print was because along the way we hadn't ever got around to signing our prints in each of the books.

Thank you ladies for this experience and for being so willing in so many ways and so much fun.

A very special thank you to the studio owner.