What Does a Textile Artist Do With a Printing Plate

For two years I travelled to Hamilton once a week with a wonderful group of local ladies to the Waikato Arts Society printmaking group. This was a social outing for me as well as an educational one. The main focus was on intaglio printing though we did look at some relief printing and collagraph. The experience helped shaped my art going forward and propel me toward more becoming a mixed media artist.

The plate used in this creation was an early one using a picture of a fish on a calendar as inspiration. I learnt from the group that you could carve into cheap plastic cutting boards or even cereal containers (rather than the more expensive aluminium plates) and that you could use a pasta maker or a die cut machine to print small pieces. I could not justify the cost of a big printing machine at home which was part of the drawcard for the group travelling to Hamilton. I also learnt things like using the paper damp so it didn’t tear which stood me in good stead when it cam to eco printing in a heat press.

Back to this little quilt. Of course my focus was still on textiles rather than paper prints, although you can see the original paper print below. I decided to print my fish (or try to) on fabric. Three runs through the cuttlebug and the prints above appeared. So now I needed to create a waterscape for them to live in.

The ladies I went to class with were dedicated primarily to their printing and created wonderful prints but as always I was impatient to get the next process.

Cleaning the inked plate with mull and wiping areas like the mouth and eye (see below) completely clear of ink was not my favourite part of the operation.

Currently I am working on advanced techniques using a gel plate and some of those images are on the Printing without a press blog.