Collagraph

Equipment and materials:

Card
scissors
textured wallpaper
mesh
string
fabric
craft knife
textured materials
glue 
paper
press
cutting mat



Step by step:

Firstly collect your materials
using glue attach the materials onto your cardboard square
the materials can be cut into desired shapes and sizes
once the glue has set cover the card in a layer of shellac
ink the card plate and place paper on top
run the paper and card through the press and remove paper once finished 


Health and safety:

do not put fingers near press wheel
watch hands when turning press wheel
be cautious when dealing with craft knifes and scissors
do not consume glue


The technique i have explored is collagraph, i have explored collagraph by producing 4 4x4 plates exploring different materials to see what textures and effects they produced.

The qualities and key features of collagraph include relief included in intaglio, abstract and textural print. Its not a good technique however for producing representational work as it is difficult to gain detail. These features are a lot easier to obtain with collagraph than with lino which produces straight and distinctive lines and marks, also easier than mono print which wouldn't pick up as much as the texture but offer a better tonal scale. Painterly and Dry point techniques would differ due to the difference in the types and depth of marks produced as they would be flat or embedded instead of relief. 

With collagraph you are able to produce multiple prints using the same prints however after frequent use the materials will flatten and the plate will not print to the same standard.

The limitations of collagraph are that if too much ink is applied then the print will not come out properly, it is difficult to get different areas of colour, for the plate to work you need an even surface, it is sometimes difficult to stick down certain objects and the print can become faded.

With this workshop the only problem i encountered was sticking down a plastic mesh and it would not stick so i held it on with paperclips.

The strengths of my work were that my colour palette was fairly even and i found it fairly easy attaching most objects, the weakness would be that i did not produce as wide of variety with the plates as i would have liked.

i have used the technique of collagraph in a similar way to Barbara Rae by adding multiple colours to a piece and building up materials onto a single plate.

i will expand on the techniques i have learnt by using new and different materials to further develop my work, i would also combine past and present techniques to make improvements to my style.