Mono-printing and Embossing workshop with Annabel Wilkes by Rose

Back in September I treated myself to a workshop with the lovely Annabel Wilks.
She ran special 1 to 1 workshops and mini sessions through the September and October. Along with wanting to encourage people to be creative she also wanted to provide people with a safe, nurturing and friendly, creative space so she opened her Garden Studio to host the classes.  

She offered two different workshops that people could choose from, Cyanotype printing or Mono-printing and Embossing. I chose Mono-printing and Embossing because I had dabbled in these areas before, but many years ago as a student, so wanted to revisit this process and I was also interesting to see what approach Annabel had. 

We were very lucky on the day, as we had sunshine with a light breeze, which made working outside lovely. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Annabel at our day job, but this was the first time being able to see her work and her processes, which I always find fascinating.  

She asked that I bring along anything that I would like to use and think about possible colours/patterns/images that I'd like to incorporate into the workshop. I brought with me dried leaves, that I've been meaning to use, along with a few seed pots I picked up on my way. As to colours being by the sea and having blue sky on the day, Blue became my main colour. But I wanted to try a brighter contrasting colour Annabel had a wonderfully rich Orange that I ended up trying and LOVING the end results.
As to my shapes and images, I used a range of leaves and hexagon shapes, inspired by honeycombs which connect to Bees and thus nature. Which is my main narrative when creating.

Annabel showed me around, talked me through the safety measures and then she walked me through the process we would be using that day. She then showed me ideas from passed workshops and then a step by step how to demonstration.
It was then brain storming time, about what I would like to do, she would be there as my “helper”

There were a few things I had to think about when laying out and choosing the items I wanted to use. 
We were using thick printing paper, 350gm Sanderson paper, I've used this in the past for watercolour painting as the paper doesn't give so easily when using washes of colour. For printing we needed to sock the paper for 5-10mins before being able to print onto it.  
I had six sheets to use and a choice of white and buffed coloured paper.  
Due to the nature of the printing press, there was a maximum thickness of 5mm, any thicker and the press might get damaged. So I needed to be mindful of this when laying out my design.

I brought with me a selection of dried leaves, and Annabel also had a collection of materials I could use. I asked Annabel to mix the inks as i picked out the size board I wanted to use and the materials. The Inks needed to be kept moving else they would get a skin on them and wouldn’t give a smooth coating.  

My first colour was a pale blue and with a couple of boards I used them twice would gave a ghosting impressions of the previous objects I had used.

Being by the sea and having blue sky that day, Blue became my main colour. I wanted to try out a brighter contrasting colour I chose a wonder rich Orange that she had.
As to my shapes and images, used a range of leaves and hexagon shapes, inspired by honeycombs which connect to Bees and thus nature.

I reused leaves as they had ink on them to produced images with mixed colours and shapes, rather than just white positive or negative prints.

You might also see as the leaves went off the colour boards, the embossing that they created. It was also interesting the flip the paper over and see how much of an imprint was made into the paper after going through the presser.

By the end of the session, which was roughly 3 hours long, I had a great selection of prints. Each one with own unique feel and look to it.

My hope was to give these to people as Christmas/birthday gifts, but they are so nice I’ll have to keep one for myself, something not so easy to do.

I really enjoyed my day. I was a wonderful gifted as a time when being creative was hard.
At time when meeting people was also difficult and the heart and mind just wanted to relax.

This was such a wonderful feeling, to be free and with good company.

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