collagraph – Dawn Blanchfield

Posted on July 20, 2025July 20, 2025 by Dawn Blanchfield — Leave a comment

Prints Charming

Whether it is photography or printmaking, I am always making prints. My friend Christopher always makes a joke that someday my “prints” will come – a riff on ‘Someday my prince will come.’ He’s like that.

Well, he has finally found his true love and is getting married next weekend! I can’t think of any princess jokes that would apply. Maybe something about if the shoe fits… I don’t know. They met at the dog park … ??

Yeah, there is no good place to go with that so I’ll just leave the bad jokes to him and just carry on being so damn happy for them.

I’m thinking about that joke today because of this:

A rack full of drying prints that I’ve made this week! 12 that I made just this morning. Erin has forbidden me from singing Pharrell Williams’ “Happy”, but I am. Happy happy happy.

I’ve recently switched things up (who’s surprised?) and have started making collagraphs. When I made collagraphs in the past, I had built up the surfaces on the base and rolled the ink with a brayer and printed the plates as relief prints. Now I am cutting into the matboards and intaglio-inking into the recesses. I seem to have found my peace with the tarlatans and wiping plates. Who knows, maybe there are etchings in my future?

And then there are the lithographs. After the Pronto Plate Lithography workshop I took last month, I immediately ordered all the things I would need to do this process at home. After testing several different pens, markers, and ink, it seems the china marker is giving me the best results so far:

::insert happy dance here::

I’ll keep experimenting. I know there is a pen/marker that will give me the thin lines I want. I also need to get some toner powder. And for the pronto plate-curious, I am heat setting my plates in the oven for 3 mins at 250 degrees.

Hit me up if you’ve got questions or advice! I am wingin’ it here.

Posted on April 12, 2014 by Dawn Blanchfield — Leave a comment

Crocker Art Museum – Art Auction Season 2014

Great news! My collagraph, The Theotokos Triptych, has been selected for the Crocker’s 36th annual Art Auction!

ART AUCTION 2014

SATURDAY, JUNE 7
DOORS OPEN AT 5:30 PM
SILENT AUCTION CLOSES AT 7 PM

This artful evening features work by more than 100 of the region’s finest artists, silent auctions followed by a gourmet dinner, and an exciting live auction. Casually elegant attire.

For Art Auction tickets, sponsorships or additional information, call (916) 808-7843.

Art Auction Exhibit on view: MAY 22 – JUNE 7

I have also donated Holy Wound Five to the Big Names Small Art event at the Crocker.

Encaustic with Gold Leaf 10"x10" — Encaustic with Gold Leaf 10″x10″

BNSA (BIG NAMES SMALL ART)

THURSDAY, MAY 22, 5:30 – 9 PM
FIRST SILENT AUCTION CLOSES AT 6:30 PM

Free to Museum members and Patron ticket holders
$15 Nonmembers
Reserve tickets at crockerartmuseum.org

“Join us for the art party of the year featuring “Small Art” by “Big Name” artists. Bidding on all BNSA items start at just $25. Music, a no-host bar, gourmet food, and docent-led tours of the Art Auction galleries round out the evening.”

I am so thrilled to have my work shown at the Crocker and to be able to support such a great museum here in Sacramento!

Posted on January 30, 2014January 30, 2014 by Dawn Blanchfield — Leave a comment

You gotta keep ’em separated

or not so much…

My printmaking class started this week so I’ve been thinking about what images I want to create. Since I am in the “advance” class – 40B, I can pretty much do what I want. And you must have picked up by now that that kind of artistic freedom can be kinda paralyzing for me. Last semester we learned the following printmaking techniques: drypoint, collagraph, woodcut, and monotypes. And with each new assignment/technique, we were given a theme as a starting off point for our image. I played nicely within the given parameters and was pushed, learned a lot, and made some cool prints.

This time around? I need to write a brief proposal of what I plan to do this semester. What do I plan to do… what do I want to do? I know I want to make more monotypes. That’s kinda a no brainer. I definitely want to do another woodcut! Collagraphs were fun to create, but unless I have a flash of inspiration, I’m not that concerned with making another one. And drypoint… meh. Unless I come up with a really cool drawing, I could skip that too. Inking those plates is hard yo!

But since I knew today would be lecture for the 40A students and I didn’t have any other ideas fully fleshed out, I decided to work on the second drypoint I had started last semester. I never really got the plate to a finished state and I didn’t want to leave it hanging like so many knitting projects. So I was working on the plate when Nick (the instructor) came around the room to check in with everyone and see how their ideas/drawings were coming along. I told him my plan to finish last semester’s drypoint while I work on some ideas for new prints. He nodded and then asked me if I had considered combining printmaking and photography by printing a plate onto an actual photo.

wow

Flashback to a year ago when Randy (my photography professor) suggested I combine my hand-painted negatives (Cliché verre – so like monotype printmaking!) with photo negatives when I do my Independent Study for Photography: Alt Processes.

And here I sit, 4 hours later, with my head spinning trying to figure out how to put these two things together. The same spinning wheels Randy had set in motion. And I still can’t quite see it. It’s not the technical “how” that is stumping me – that is easy – but what does the end result look like? What photo? And how do I change it with the print if the photo is already “complete”? Do I need to take new photos? (The answer is yes, but that has nothing to do with this specific problem.) Do I need to look at it is as a double exposure? Graffiti/vandalism? Adding elements? Blocking things out? ugh!

And I loath and love this place of complete frustration. I know that I will chew on this problem like a dog with a bone. I will lose sleep over it and make myself (and those around me) crazy until I figure it out. But when I do – it’ll be good!

I hope.

“Raven” – collagraph