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Following on from my more in depth blog on collagraph printing on to tea bag paper I thought I'd do a really quick round up of a few prints I've made on the paper using both relief and intaglio techniques and any thoughts or pointers that I have.

I've had some success printing on to tea bag paper but I was a little bit sceptical as to how well it would pick up the details from a collagraph plate as the paper needs to make contact with lots of little grooves and channels in the plate. Here's the printing process I went through and the outcomes.

Tie dying paper is tricky as the paper is usually too fragile to be manipulated a lot, especially when damp.  Knowing that the tea bag paper is strong when wet I suddenly thought that I could try things I might with a fabric but could then use it as a collage paper! Coooool! 

One of the main projects I had in mind for the tea bag paper was cyanotype printing.  Those of you who have followed my work on Facebook or Instagram will have seen previous cyanotypes I have made over the last year or so.  I have created prints on a range of papers and fabric with varying success.  Some papers are brilliant for showing detail in the prints whilst others have a less defined edge to the images.  Unfortunately though, some of the papers that develop the best image quality disintegrate at the rinsing stage.  

Following on from the last post I wanted to incorporate some french knots into my next tea bag paper project to see how well it holds up.  Again I create a mini canvas using the gelli plate but work in to it a lot with acrylic paint before stitching.