Colleafgraphs

Date March–December 2020

Specification

Prints

Medium

Collagraph print: leaves: alder, ash, beech, black locust, cherry, elm, hornbeam, lime, maple, oak, plane, rowan, sweet chestnut, sweet gum, sycamore, and whitebeam; block printing ink, resin adhesive, 80gsm paper

Site

Victoria Park, Well Street Common, London Fields, Haggerston Park, Hackney Marshes

Collagraph prints of leaves collected during daily Government permitted runs from a one-bed flat without a garden to local parks, commons, fields and marshes in east London during the first and second Covid lockdowns.

Go for a run/walk
Stop at every newly fallen leaf
Collect if its shape/texture/colour speaks to you
Arrange on a piece of card and cut if wished
Glue to card
Apply block printing ink to glued leaves
Lay 80GSM paper over and press firmly with fingers between veins, midribs and petioles
Repeat print - the first will be thick black, the following will get lighter and pick up more details
Leave to dry for up to a fortnight.
Apply lacquer to fix if wished

Leaf print 2
Leaf print 5

References

Glen Alps, Space Tensions, 1956, collagraph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Johanna Calle. Sangrado, Perímetros Series, 2014, typed text on vintage notarial ledgers.
London Assembly and Transport for London. 2019. London Street Tree Map.
Mohammad Omar Khalil, Harlem, 1999, Etching, aquatint, softground, scraping.
Sadtído Pereira, Untitled, 2017, woodcut.
Wenniger, M. A. 1981. Collagraph Printmaking. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications.

References

Further Images