I have always loved small square prints….and beer, and beer mats. So it seemed natural to combine these loves…..minus the beer of course, and make collagraphy from beer mats.

This is the second batch, the first ones were fine but lacked the detail I wanted……this time I covered each mat with aluminium foil tape (used for joining insulation panels.

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Covering mats with aluminium. The gap is because the tape is not as wide as the mat so a join that will print black.

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Then I built on the mat with Golden Heavy Body Gloss Gell…the stencilled shapes. Golden black mica paste…the number, and a brush of Golden micacious iron oxide.

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Here are three mats and their resulting prints. I used Akua Intaglio. I love how the gel shapes give a drawn line, and the iron oxide looks like charcoal. On the second printing this came away but probably because unlike the gels I didn’t leave it overnight to dry…far too impatient!