I have just finished an afternoon course over several weeks in drypoint and collagraph printing. It was really enjoyable to learn something completely new. My main reason was to meet some new people, and I was slightly in awe of some of the talented printers in the group.
I did not really get to grips with the collagraph. It involves cutting surfaces, and building up textured material, and I think I just wasn't careful enough. I prefered the drypoint, where you are scratching lines onto a surface.
But in both techniques the skill really seems to be in applying the inks. Below shows how different the results can be from the same plate. This is a manga version of my son for his birthday card. In the end I gave him the top one, where I applied the hair colour with ink. The bottom one was a black and white print, with the colour watercoloured on afterwards.
It was fun to try something new, and I have signed up for linoprinting in the autumn with the same teacher.
