Experimenting with chine collé

Chine Collé

I want to do some experiments which add colour to my prints. Chine collé is a technique where thin coloured paper is adhered to the printing paper during the printing process. Sometimes thin  coloured Japanese paper is used, but for these experiments I just used coloured tissue paper which one can buy from a stationer or art shop.

I decided to use the print of the heron I had previously done, which is a dry point etching. The heron is standing in water, and so I thought that I could try and get the effect of water by using the coloured tissue. A print of the heron is shown below, which I had simply printed in black ink.

For my experiments with Chine collé I inked up the plate as normal with black ink. I then used different pieces of tissue, cut or torn into different shapes, for a number of prints, to see which worked the best. I placed the tissue on top of the inked plate and then applied a thin layer of glue (pritt stick, with water) to the tissue paper. I then laid the plate on the printing press with the glued tissue paper uppermost, placing the printing paper on top. I then rolled the plate through the press. The pressure of the printing press adheres the glued side of the tissue to the paper. The results are shown below.

 

 

 

 

Conclusions

 

I started with a piece of tissue which covered the whole of the printing paper and then gradually reduced the amount of tissue I applied, to obtain different effects and depths of water. I felt that the shade of blue which I used for the two first prints was too bright, so I changed to the lighter shade for the rest of the experiment. I think that this is an improvement as the colour is more natural. I concluded that the last two prints (shown above) have come out the best. The colour is more natural and the shapes are discreet and blend in with the ripples of the water. I will definitely use this process again as I believe that the results are subtle, but effective. Next time, I would like to experiment with Japanese paper (if I can get hold of some), as I believe that the colours do not fade over time (which may happen to the tissue).