Landscape with Pink Mountains (Chine Colle)

Landscape with Pink Mountains (Chine Colle) Originally uploaded by randubnick

This is the second piece that I made in printmaking class on Tuesday night. This is a Chine colle, a process that combines collage and printmaking. Another person who is taking the class brought a lot of interesting paper for everyone to use. I made this image with two plates (a "double drop"). I cut two shapes for my mountain landscape out of pink and brown patterned paper, then applied paste to the back, and arranged them on the first plate. I prepared a second plate with blue ink, applied with a brayer in areas where I thought I wanted to apply color to the image. Then I ran my paper through the press with the first plate, to get the pasted papers to stick to it. Then, leaving my paper in the press, I removed the first plate and immediately substituted the second in exactly the same place. Then I ran the image through the press a second time to get the blue areas. The result wasn't perfect; the pink piece at the top was a bit off-center, but it looks fine with a bit of cropping. Even so, this is the best print that I made Tuesday night. I was (and still am) very excited to see what can be done with this process.