Collagraph "River Valley"

Here is my favorite collagraph from my printing session on Thursday.  You ink up your plate each time you want to take a print.  This one is my favorite of the day because I added a touch of blue and green to the basically warm palette.  

I usually love the plates.  Most of the shapes are cut from paper, some using "punches" from the craft store - others just cut with scissors or an exacto blade.  The dark mountain area is from a textured medical tape you might wrap an injured finger with - the texture trapped a lot of ink!  The river shape came from some embossed paper which I added depressed lines to with a ball point pen. I also love the skeleton leaves so they were added on the two top corners and a half curve on the bottom edge.  Remember - no color or value from the plate is transferred onto the actual print - just the ink that gets trapped in the edges.