Having spent much of last year printing from packaging, towards the end of last year I started searching for different types of bases, ones that are found, have a history. Exploring the palimpsest, whether that’s from reworking old paintings or using found textures has been a theme throughout my practice. Raising the status of the lost and abandoned has deep autobiographical references.

During last year I took an online course in encaustic collagraphy with the excellent Elise Wagner and had been exploring surfaces that would happily take hot encaustic medium. I like how it can be brushed on, smoothed over and embossed. Other than the textures I make in it, it rejects the ink so leaves clear whites.

Two avenues arrived, the first was using plywood…..the texture of which has been used for generations by Japanese printmakers, and more recently by Helen Frankenthaler. The plywood I wanted to explore comes from Cuban cigar boxes, it is an avenue that I am exploring and will write about soon. In this post I want explore the second avenue; vintage book covers. Before you ask these books are heading for recycling, I see this as saving part of them before they go.

Here’s one of the first prints I made from a book cover. I am calling this series ‘Bookmarks’.

Having parted the cover from its text I add a range of products to it that I know from experience will either hold or reject the ink providing a range of values and textures. These include shellac, carborundum, tape and wax* The shapes are from by sketchbooks predominately architecture and shadows.

I always record my progress with my camera and had taken photos of the plates next to their respective prints, it helps to see where changes can be made. Seeing these photos small on my phone I was struck by the impact of the mirror, the reflection. I was excited by how how the echo of shapes created more shapes and a visual flow through from one side to another. It is important to listen out for these moments, to make note of them as its usually something that should be explored, those ‘aha’ moments of revelation!

But its one thing having an idea and another to find a way of realising it. It took me weeks to find a way of achieving a reverse print** but by drawing on many years of printmaking experience I finally overcame the technical difficulties and could begin to explore the aesthetic and creative possibilities. That’s when the fun starts!

I set about creating a few ‘reflection’ prints and posted them on social media. Reactions were positive and they were picked up and reposted by Akua Inks.

I liked aspects of them but wasn’t as excited by them as I thought I would be, they felt too organic, too much like butterfly wings. I soon realised that the plates I had used lacked contrast and strong shapes. I also decided they needed the gap between the two prints. These are separate prints, twins but not co-joined. The gap also provides a structure, a point of tension, almost touching…..

I decided to use the last plates I had made to explore reflection further. Using a uniform monochrome over the whole plate made it easier to mirror, there are fewer opportunities for assymetry or fluctuating values.

I am enjoying this exploration and have been thinking about why that is. With printmaking there is the surprise, the reveal as the print is lifted from the plate. Here there is a second surprise as one is placed alongside its twin, and the different permutations reveal more surprises.

A lot of symmetrical art are boring mathematical exercises…but the contrast between these gestural texturalmarks and the symmetry is striking. Much to consider and reflect upon.

I ventured off to find precedences to this concept. Apart from the obvious Rorschach ink blots, and op art of Vasarely there was not a lot to find that related. As architecture is a constant theme it wasn’t long before I was reminded of the photographs by Hilla and Bernd Becher. What interests the Bechers were constructions made by engineers whose plans are pragmatic, where function dictates the form, rather than, as is increasingly the case, the other way round. In the words of Bernd: ‘There is a form of architecture that consists in essence of apparatus, that has nothing to do with design, and nothing to do with architecture either. They are engineering constructions with their own aesthetic.’***

Whilst I love the monochrome I’m intrigued by the difference colour could make so I played on photoshop…

I love it when an idea comes to fruition and offers more than expected! There is a lot left to explore here and I’m off on a break from my studio and teaching for a few weeks. But I know I have something to pick up when I get back…..

Whilst I don’t teach encaustic collagraphy I do run three online collagraphy courses. In the summer I will be launching Make Plates as a three part self-paced course for those who cannot do the winter scheduled one.

NEXT COURSE; My 6 week scheduled course Approaches to Abstraction starts on the 18th April, booking opens at the start of April.

*encaustic collagraphy; See Elise Wagner for more about this technique. It is not a process I teach as it’s her baby, and her courses are AMAZING. Also it involves specialist equipment, ventilation and fire extinguishers.

**It took me weeks to work it out, and for once I’m not sharing how I do it…..sorry!

***https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/bernd-becher-and-hilla-becher-718/long-look