Polymer Collagraph on thin hardboard

What a sight this is - it looks like an awful mess and I suppose it is really.  It started out as an experiment that I wanted to do using  a process I saw mentioned in a book I wrote about in a post on the Fife Dunfermline Printmakers blog on the pluses and minuses of printmaking hand books.  Click HERE  to see the relevant technique.  Its the first box on the top left.  It involves ovens and freezers.  In the end I didnt dare put it into our oven as I was worried about the fumes it would create and I just chickened out.....maybe I will try it sometime soon though.  What a wooss!! ,  as Beavis and Buthead would say.

That reminds me I saw the second half of the most recent Simpsons movie, today when I got back from a 'get together' at Steves place (FDPW) and I actually hardly remembered any of it - so I really enjoyed it.   Getting back to this plate,  which I played around with a bit,  as a possibility of making one of the three prints to submit,  to the Wharepuke International Print project  - I used some polymer medium which I have had on my shelves for ages as it was mentioned in the book referred to above.

I proofed it and was somewhat disappointed in that the tones were all middle range and thinking on it again it may be that I should have done another proof and wiped it a bit more vigorously although it was actually very hard to wipe at all.  None the less I just wanted to get some idea of how it looked.

I had this image of a young woman deep in thought that I really liked and thought of using it as a chine colle element with the possibility of it being under the layer of the polymer proof although in these mock ups its just sitting on top.

I made some notes as I was going along which I often do to myself.  Thinking on other plates I have that I may incorporate into the composition.  The "sorry" plate mentioned is  a handwritten  square (ish) organically edged/ etched zinc plate 10 cm x 10 cm.     I still have to go back to this plate, and continue with it. Although I have added some lighter and darker tones to it - I have yet to take another proof.  I had several possibilities on the go at the time and this was one that just got put to the side.  I had to cut the plate down from its original size which was about 20 x 26 -- whatever it was originally it then became  more  rectangular and able to fit onto A4 size paper - which was one of the requirements for  Wharepuke