In the YouTube video "Collagraph or Sculpture? - You Decide", I show how to create either a collagraph or a sculpture using glitter and ink. I comment that it is easy to work with and that the results are fantastic. I discuss the difference between collagraph and sculpture and demonstrate how a collagraph can be made on a flat surface. The final product is beautiful.
Welcome to my studio! On this beautiful February day, I wanted to show you how you can turn your color graph into almost a sculpture using the properties of different gels and pastes.
The textures you can get are very organic and exciting looking, and you can have a black and white result or add colors to it. It's entirely up to you! The result is really exciting with lots of different textures, and this tutorial is about the exciting possibilities of DIY and art materials.
So, I've started by covering my Mount board in tile adhesive. It's a great medium for a dark background, and I have applied it with a palette knife. I have also created a border made of mercation's iron oxide, but you don't need to have this border. I have different tones on the plate, and I will create the lighter tone using matte medium. To get a very dark tone, I will apply mercation's iron oxide. I will create these areas using either masking tape or stencils, and I will experiment with the materials to achieve some really exciting results. So, now that my composition is more or less ready, I've added some glitter to the gel before it dried.
I also added some matte gel medium for a mid-tone, and I played with cling film to add some extra fun texture. After it dried, I cut out some shapes from my design, secured them with matte extra heavy gel medium, and added some clear tar gel for contrast. I then applied a stencil using light molding paste, and added clear tar gel to make the stencil stand out more against the background. I also tried to add some crackle paste, but it didn't work very well because the tile adhesive was too absorbent.
So, I applied some ink and did a proof print to see what the result would look like. The crackle paste came out nicely, and the matte medium with clear tar gel turned out really well. I added a little bit of glitter, and I'm pleased with the graduation of textures.
For the color, I decided to do a mixed media print and have a photo transfer of a tree and a Shin colay collage. I plan to wet the Shin colay collage and print it on top of my color graph with black ink, and it will be a complete experiment to see what the result will be.