Printmaking
Scapes is an ongoing series of prints made in multiple mediums including collagraph and watercolor monoprint. They are studies in abstract form and composition and all the pieces are or exceed 24 x 36 inches.
PROCESS
These pieces are made by creating abstracted frost-flower forms by pulling string under pressure in either additive or subtractive methods to creates detailed impressions on the plates. The initial experiments were made on a collagraph plate, seeing how the string reacts to carborundum and polyurethane. I did when the material was both wet and dry.
Building up the plate was an extremely iterative process. To create depth in the piece required additive polyurethane string pulls over the existing and dried carborundum. Since its hard to see polyurthane at all, let alone over dark surfaces, I was constantly inking and printing the plate to see what I had. After printing multiple prints using the collagraph plate, I experimented with how the method could be controlled on even larger scales with watercolor monoprints which introduced the temporality of the plate impressions.
As I created more of these forms and learned how to control the string impressions, I realized the abstract environment and spaces I was creating. I started to introduce different kinds of plates, methods, and images to interact with these forms to extend the scapes of organic frost flowers and geometric contrast. These other methods included big ground etchings, lasercut collagraph, and fabric plates.
