Yesterday afternoon I snatched a couple of hours and set up the press determined to make a couple of simple monoprints to represent the stacked tree trunks which have just been harvested in the forest.
I previously discovered that using a tight ball of scrim (as for a la poupée inking) turned in a circular motion produces an effect that echoes the patterns of wood rather beautifully.
I found that stiff, more textured scrim works better than soft smooth scrim for this to get as many marks with each turn as possible without removing too much of the ink.
I happened to have some of the things I had collected from the forest on the table and made the decision to ink up some of the lichen that I had collected (from the ground!) and pressed for a week. Some of it had gone into making a collagraph plate but I had some left over and decided to try printing from it directly. I really liked the results, I was amazed by the depth I got from them where the lichen was multi-layered, it can clearly be seen. This opens possibilities for using this to represent trees in print.
I explored further... I inked up a plate and used the lichen as a stencil, although I was careful to put it ink side up. I didn't re-ink it but thought there would probably be enough ink still on it to get some transfer rather than just a white area. I was right. I then removed the lichen from the plate and ran the plate through the press again. This always gives a stunning print, it's much more subtle than the first one which is very light and dark, the second print has an impression of the lichen but some of the ink is now on the lichen, but there's always an area around the stencil that nothing has yet touched so you can use this to get a dark outline which I think is stunning.
As I was working I kept experimenting and then made another plate of circles, but this time added the lichen. I thought there was something in the idea of the lichen looking like a growing tree on a texture representing felled trees, and the lichen grows on trees, but also the fact that the lichen has also fallen, there was something in that comparison of the fallen and the felled but both having another use.
I carried on experimenting by overlaying the lichen onto other texture prints and one image print to see whether it was adding to the story of life in the forest. I think my reduction linocut brain kicked in and works in layers so I want to experiment with layering images.
There's something interesting here but I need to consider how/whether I want to use these in my piece.
I realised as I was working that I was exploring ideas and themes present in the forest through the process which I'm fairly certain is an excellent example of practise based research in miniscule. The themes of layering and use after life were occurring to me as I was working, I felt like just playing with the ink and the lichen was a way of exploring the forest and processing what I have observed there. It raised new ideas about how I might create layers by using more found materials to print directly from rather than just make plates with.