I did some reading up about poly plate lithography techniques and discovered that acrylic can be used as a ground, specifically Lascaux hard ground (the one I use in etching). You dilute it with approximately 20% water and add a drop or two of indian ink (I used the version without shellac - just in case!) and it can be painted on. It was recommended to use a thin layer as it will seal the poly plate no ,atter the thickness, but if applied heavily may crack or be so think that it will affect the surface of the print. To create textural pieces you can use a solution of water and washing up detergent in a spray bottle to disperse the acrylic whilst it is still wet.
I created two plates, one with fairly thick acrylic and one far thinner:
The only thing that was rather annoying in this process is that the plates are very curly (they arrive in a roll and I haven't figured out how to flatten then successfully yet as they're fairly large). This mean as soon as they were wet all the liquid poured off in one direction. With the paler plate I dabbed at it with a cloth to soak up the excess liquid which also helped stop the pouring. I was interested to see the different results these two would elicit.
At the same time I made a plate which I drew onto with biro, sharpie and a korns lithographic crayon No 4. Apparently the harder crayons can be used on the poly plates with firm pressure (I tried a no 1 previously and it just wiped straight off with the water).
Here are the inked up plates:
I was amazed how black the paler acrylic plate went - a really thin layer really is all that is needed!
Here are some of the prints. The first two were onto dry paper, the far right was the middle print onto wet paper. Interestingly the dry paper picked up all the layering in the far left print which was lost in subsequent prints onto wet paper.
I had an idea to use this technique onto the dry paper as a background layer for an etching. These prints are recreating the textural chaos present in the forest.
I was really rather pleased with the drawing experiment.
The first pull was rather grey as there was a lot of crayon that moved with the water so I cleaned the print off with toothpaste which further removed some of the crayon but there was just enough left to create some really interesting textures, especially alongside the two pens. I think with a little practise using sharpie and biro as drawing implements I might produce some nice results.
I'd like to consider breaking a print like this down into separate plates and using multiple colours or using chine collé during the printing process to add some block colours.
Once these are fully dry I will add them to my sketchbook with relevant notes to use going forward. In the meantime I need to buy some more plates (as soon as they're back in stock!).