Collagraph Capers

A collagraph is a relief print made using materials applied to a base surface.  The wonderful thing about collagraph printing is how endless the possibilities are, and also how its great for recycling/using up lots of bits you may have lying around.  Ok, so that's two things.  A pro printmaker may use thin wood as a base to avoid warping, but for working with kids, a thick piece of card works great, the back of an old sketchbook is ideal.

We gathered our materials:

We used some tissue paper, string, fabric scraps, kitchen foil, corrugated card and some dried corn husks.  The first step is to apply the materials to the surface.  Remember that you are thinking texture above everything - its the raised areas that will take the ink when its rolled over.  We used plain old pva glue, but if you are looking for something more durable, you will want to use wood glue, and seal with some shellac-based varnish. 

Lots of glueing ensued.

And here's mine.

 
The surface needs to be sealed prior to printing, so I applied a surface coat of pva, and left to dry overnight.

Next day:

I picked up some metallic water-based printing inks dirt cheap a while back in a sale, and was keen to try them out, so we rolled out some gold for Boo's printing tile, and used some coloured sugar paper.

You need a tray and roller for the ink, and the ink is applied to the printing surface thoroughly, making sure you get 'into' all the textures/raised surfaces.  The paper is laid over the top, and then pressure applied on top to make the print.  We used the back of a metal spoon as that can more deftly get into all the different textures, but this is tricky for a young'un, and Boo rather lost interest at this point.

So the results were...hmmm... well I thought I little too subtle.  So now I'm thinking of using the metallic inks as a second colour in a two-colour print, or perhaps trying coloured tissue paper as that may pick up more ink than the tissue paper.

So when it came to inking up my tile (Boo had scarpered by this point), I returned to the reliability of black water-based printing ink, and newsprint.

That's more what I was expecting, but I'm keen to explore using colours and different papers to print onto, so I'm sure there'll be some more experimentation further down the line. 

Rainy season is setting in here, so expect to see plenty more from the studio, especially as its days are numbered, it being required as a nursery early next year!