Collagraph Plate.

 I painted the empty piece of cardboard with a texture paste containing blended fibres to give the background of this plate some texture. I then stamped some of my pots and jugs series of carved rubber stamps onto thin cardboard, cut them out and glued them into place. I added texture with a small engraving tool and painted gloss medium onto the highlights. Next I was trying to find some vegetation that might be used to fit into the containers. These pressed leaves didn't seem quite right.

     These flowers were pressed some 18 years ago, I knew that they'd come in handy one day!

 Someone gave me some emu feathers years ago and here I've used  several in the composition. The colour of the feathers isn't the colour that you see in the photo, the feathers have been used for printing on another occasion and still show the colour that I used then.

Now for some leaves that might work O.K It's hard to gauge just what a print might look like, as the colours that you see here are misleading, as the ink used to print the plate is the only colour that will be finally seen. I'm hoping that the textures on all these things will be sufficient to make a nice print, but I still have a way to go before that stage.