Plate Wipe

Dawdling at my desk when I should be out planting seeds in the sunshine!

The black & white seed mix was purchased at the last print fair Pete and I went to at the Hat Works museum in Stockport where we live. A fabulous hat collection as Stockport used to be a great centre for the hatting industry. The museum hosts a variety of other events including this latest print fair.

Stockport Hat Works

Seed packets sold by illustrator Alice Smith. I love packaging and this artist's work is great, her website is worth a look too.

Alice Smith Illustrator

Thinking about orderly lines of seeds...(A very unrealistic daydream) I did a few experiments with the process I know as Plate Wipe (Great name!) 

I tend to work in black and white, as a screen printer if you do artwork in colour it only needs converting to black and white to make a screen stencil... so it has become my habit to think about colour later on...something I should try to not always do maybe?

I was channeling thoughts of Maxine Bristow, one of the artists who shaped my trajectory though art education...specifically an exhibition she featured in back in 1999, at the Crafts Council Gallery that used to be in Islington (Rumours of a new gallery are circulating but on hold in the current climate) I was trying to see which path to take on my Foundation course and this exhibition tilted me towards textiles!

Maxine Bristow c.1999

Plate Wipe...This process is messy! 

...so clear some space, get some kitchen roll handy and clear a path to a tap to wash your hands as they get covered in black ink!

Using block printing ink, which is all I seem to have at home, I inked up two old membership cards, squishing or 'treading' the ink to a nice consistency and then used a tin can lid as my plate, later using the cards themselves.

Once the plate is inked up you can 'wipe' marks and lines into it with anything you don't mind getting inky!

tread the ink between surfaces if you don't have a roller

Its good to dampen the paper and blot it dry, I did one damp so you can see the difference, quite effective blurriness on the damper paper.

Smooth or push back ruff edges where
possible with an old spoon
or file if you have one.

Ink up the plate with one of the cards - a bendy one is good

Wipe or draw into the ink with bits of card, cotton buds pencils or sticks.

This process is messy! Keep washing your hands!

...and the prints