Chine Colle Prints

I printed a range of chine colle prints, mostly based around the tree block I have used for my mono and lino print developed from designs and ideas previously explored in this post. I printed my block onto fine paper, turned it over which gave me a reverse image then applied this as chine colle. It was hard to chine colle such a large piece of fine paper so precisely.

This was the more successful print, I tried to balance the image by adding leaves at the bottom but these did not adhere well. I really like how the trees overlapped.

I tried to trap a fern leaf under the tissue paper in this print but this was not successful. The extra adhesive on the leaf made the ink smudge.

This simpler design was more successful. The tree with no leaves was already printed, hence it is behind the chine colle papers I applied while printing the palm tree. I like the depth this created but could have put more thought into the composition. I wanted to create the illusion of mist surrounding the trees, this was partly successful.

This print was the simplest and most successful. I overprinted the palm tree with new tree block and just added dark paper at the bottom to represent ground and balance the block. I think this composition works well.

This print was a mono print that I collaged over when exploring papers and adhesives. I then printed and added more paper as chine colle and some small highlights with foil. By using multiple layers I was able to build up a lot of depth. I noticed in this print than the more absorbent papers print thicker, darker lines. The dark blue in the fore ground is a bit too dark unbalancing this slightly.

I tried a different block for this print. I wanted to keep it simple as the print itself has so much texture. This is a bit unbalanced, the green could have been shorter. I think this is a good example of when using the rule of thirds would have created more balance.

In this project I did not cut a new block as I felt I had many unexplored options with my tree block that I began when developing the design. Because I began this design with mono print it had already gone in a range of directions before I got to this stage and I wanted to see how far I could take it. Now I understand this technique I could plan a design confidently using this technique.