Printing onto plaster

A couple of weeks ago I went on a course run by the amazing Tracy Hill, a local artist and teacher, who regularly prints onto plaster with beautiful results (see them here). Not only can you get cool effects from just inking up your plate before hand, you can then screenprint on top of it! Very impressed with how versatile this technique is , I'm definitely going to try to do some more. Perhaps not on the kitchen table though...

I used an old intaglio plate that I really wanted to get more work out of and I think it worked really well. The plaster brings out all of the tiny lumps and bumps so it's great if you want relief effects in your prints. Plus I had a go at my very first monoprint! Such a proud moment :) Anyway, here's the results.

Circles after screenprinting

Monoprint 

Printed with intaglio ink

Things to note with plaster :
1. Don't leave your fingers in it whilst it dries. Seriously, people have actually had to have them cut off!
2. Plaster + wood = unbreakable bond (the wood sucks the moisture out of the plaster, so if you do it on a wooden surface, don't expect to be able to lift it off...)

The Bluecoat Printmakers' blog recently wrote about the course (check it out here).

Anyway, let me know what you think. Happy printing :)