Some New Bird Collagraphs

Here are a selection of recent year 7s bird collagraphs.  I've included some examples of hand colouring that they did on top of extra prints, which I think are just lovely.  I did this project once before but this time I think the results are much better (see photos here).  I got the students to trace around individual shapes on their drawings and then they pieced the different textures together bit by bit.

The students used drawings of their own to develop into their collagraph.  They used a variety of different textured surfaces to create their collagraph plate including anaglypta wallpaper (brilliant for collagraphs), sandpaper, lentils, pasta, leaves, string, plastic mesh, cling film, tinfoil...anything that we could find that had a texture!  I got the students to bring in textured 'stuff' from home and they brought in all sorts of wierd and wonderful things to use.  Once they had finished their collagraph plates they covered these with shellac and left to dry over night.

I had sourced some old samples of anaglypta wallpaper from local wallpaper shops, who sold me sample books of the stuff for $40 per book.  Apparently anaglypta wallpaper is expensive in Australia, which was a bit of a shock to me as it is really quite cheap back in the UK.  Infact, when I did this project before I got free samples from B Q!  It took me a while to find where I could get the wallpaper and most people didn't have a clue what I was talking about!