Rope of Words 7 - Collograph 4

So, Horatio? Into the Gap!
This is my Artist's Book year and I am determined to research it thoroughly. I have now investigated collograph, spent many days on it, been disappointed and guess what?
While I was screenprinting my family surname document, I was waiting for the screen to dry and started chatting to the technician. I said I thought running an un-inked plate to emboss might be better, so we tried it.

te Dummmm...
this has possibilities!
(I will need to increase the depth and sort out the centre confusion.) 

Also I still really, really love the plates, especially after they have been inked up a few times and this may yet make fantastic covers as long as they are not mirror-imaged (with letters back to front) Also, they'll have to harmonise with the final artwork.

b.t.w. Last week, while I was waiting for my screen to dry last week it was in perfect timing to the Olympic torch passing along Iffley Road, so I dashed out, waited 10 minutes, witnessed the historic moment, waved and went back in to carry on printing. As Eyeore would have said "Unexpected and Gratifying"

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Rope of Words 6 - Collograph 3

Just as in the story, Rope of Words, I have to persist to achieve my goals.
I have printed my plates and quite frankly, I am disappointed. Please ignore the awful design - it was an experiment!

• It's too monochromatic for the story.
• It is not suitable for fine detail or crisp letterforms
• It is very hit and miss with inking up and printing. 

By the time I am ready to collograph, each folio will have been screen printed on two sides and could easily have undergone 8 screenings per folio on both sides. So to mess it up by getting a bit weary or inattentive during inking and burnishing is very real. My teacher agreed that it was risky to collograph after screening. I wondered about screening over the embossing.

See what I mean about the plate being more exciting! Being inked up often gives it patina as well.

So to be positive, there are some interesting textures for another day:

PVA dribbled over mount board in wavy lines

Letters peeled away from mount board - no PVA

Sandpaper cut out and glued on with gesso

Masking tape stuck on mount board and letters cut away from masking tape
The r has been PVA'd to add ink-resist

Scrim glued on using gesso

Carborundum glued on with gesso with spaces between 

Bits of torn overlapped masking tape

Plastic parcel tape stuck on mount board and letters cut away from parcel tape
No PVA to add ink-resist

Soft hemp cord glued to mount board.

As I said, I'd try to be transparent about what does and doesn't work for me.

Back to the drawing board! 

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Rope of Words 5 - Collograph 2

I invested in a two-day workshop on collograph.

• It's not worth learning this from books.
• Teachers give a far better insight into the process.
• The materials are supplied.
• You need to learn how to use the specialist equipment - e.g. the pressure of the rollers etc.

So on the first day, we made our plates and put shellac on them.
On the second day we inked our plates and printed from them.


Here is the demonstration by Janet Lueck, a talented collographer (!?) at the Oxford Printmaker's Co-op. 

The plate is inked up.

This is done using a wodge of J-cloth or a 4cm square of mountboard and the thick etching ink is pushed into every single crevice. As you can see everything gets very inky and it takes planning to "work clean"
Here is the etching ink. These days when I learn new processes I photograph materials as a visual record to save taking notes. Etching ink is different from lino ink as it's thicker and stickier (at least, I think that's the difference) It comes in tins or tubes.

The inks are oil based, so you need a good hand cleaner from a shop like Intaglio. You can use water-based inks at school, such as Caligo or Speedball, but they aren't quite as nice to work with.

The ink is wiped off again.

This is called "burnishing the plate". It is the same idea as etching except that there is a greater variety of texture. The parcel-tape areas (see yesterday's blog) wipe off to just about zero ink, while the sandpaper and carborundum areas hold the ink. This needs fine-tuning as every wipe mark gets printed, so it can easily take an hour to get the desired effect. You need practise and to understand the materials.

We used Somerset Satin printing paper 300gsm. 

100% cotton art PAPERS

Printing paper contains less size e.g. BFK Rives, Somerset Satin or Somerset Velvet.

Watercolour paper is finished by pressing between cold rollers and has the texture of the felts. It is sized but not excessively. If you write on it, it won't bleed, whereas Somerset will.

Hot Pressed paper is 'sort-of ironed' between hot rollers and has a very smooth texture so it's good for super-sharp calligraphy but is just not so yummy to handle, as it looks a bit like card. 
I'm a bit of a Philistine here in that I would always choose the feel of the paper over the sharpness of the letters.

The paper is soaked and excess water is rolled off

OKAY, so the paper is soaked for anything up to 20 minutes, then placed between a few layers of blotting paper and rolled with the huge roller to squeeze out excess water. At OCP there are very large soaking trays and piles of blotting paper.

Then the plate is laid face up on the printing press (whoops, I forgot to photograph it) and damp paper is gently positioned on the plate. Newsprint is laid on top. These are standard precautions so that the blankets don't get your ink all over them for the next poor person in the printing queue.

The plate is rolled through the press

Janet laid three blankets over the plate/paper/newsprint and rolled the printing press over them. 
If anyone can recognise a 50's washing machine with rollers: well it's similar but much bigger, heavier and designed for printing large sheets of paper. Which makes collograph inaccessible without a printing press*

When Janet picked up her print, the ink had transferred - see picture on the left, and the print was embossed. The plate is on the right, print on the left.

I am sure you will agree that we have two works of art here, the plate and the print.
The plate is cleaned with ordinary cooking oil (not extra virgin olive oil - a waste!) There is always a residue of ink which gives the plate it's patina.

Back to my Rope of Words - I am concerned that this process is too monochromatic for this book, but I'll give it a bash and try to introduce more colour as I did in "Head". I do think its a great process though.


* There is a small home /school printer designed for collographs called "The Major-George A2 portable printer press" www.majorgeorge.co.uk
Kim Major George has also written a comprehensive book on collograph which you can view on her website.

Rope of Words 4 - Collograph 1

Here is my first trial plate.
S on left: This is built from mountboard with the recessed parts "peeled" away, between the trellis. The S is painted in PVA to resist the ink.
S on right: The S was cut out of thin card and glued on, while the plant stem on the S was peeled away. the middle has wallpaper stuck to it.

After making the plates they are sealed with shellac, which can be home made or bought ready-mixed as "Button Polish" To make it, you mix shellac flakes and methelayted spirits. Either way brushes are cleaned with meths. I bought the button polish as a good hardware store in the varnish section.

I then did a plate which actually has a muddly design as I was trying everything to test different surfaces. I think there are too many trials in one piece, but we'll see what happens when I print from it. I was trying out lettering in particular. The black is carborundum or iron filings and it and the sandpaper bit would come out very dark.The shiny brown is plastic parcel tape which comes out very light as the ink gets wiped off it easily.

After shellacing it, I wrote on the plate with a CD pen to photograph as a record.

I'll give the list of surfaces when I show the results (if they are showable!).

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Rope of Words 2

My first thought for illustration of the Artists' book is to use Collograph. My experience has been to try it once on a one-day course which I went to because my computer workshop was cancelled!


So here is "Head"

What is collograph?
Okay, in a nutshell! (more in due course):


It is like etching in that a plate is inked up and off-set prints are made from it.
Etched plates are metal and are engraved using acid, but collograph plates are made of cardboard such as mountboard.

1. The cardboard plate has thin pieces of card, materials, wall paper etc. glued on. The neckpiece is made of wallpaper and the cloche hat is satin brocade. The eyebrows are scratched in and are black from the residue of the first printing. The left side of the face is textured Japanese paper with long threads and the nose, lips and cheek detail is shiny gold card which resists ink.

1. The collograph is then varnished with shellac or similar.
2. It is inked up in a similar way to an etching plate - ink is pushed into every single crevice and layered on quite thickly.
3. The ink is wiped off laboriously and carefully, leaving it in the scratched marks and indentations. It might be wiped over smoother surfaces leaving traces or wipe-marks. 
4. If you are working in more than one colour as above, different areas would be inked up at the same time so that the borders blend. Wiping down is then even more meticulous. Expect to take an hour to wipe down and "burnish" the plate.
5. The plate is laid on the printing press bed and damp paper is put on top. 
6. The printing press is then rolled over the plate forcing the damp paper into the indentations to pick up ink and to emboss slightly

"Head" is a (rather funny) pottery head that I copied. As she has a cavity for flowers, I gave her a headdress.
The template on the left in both photos is the plate which is built up and varnished. I used a peacock feather (which should have been wiped down more skilfully, but you can see how beautifully the textures are reproduced in the print on the right. I cut the head out and gave her a different hat for the image at the top of the post. I also discarded the background.
I really think this way of illustrating has potential and I could even use a real plate for the cover. My only reservation is that the print needs to look as "gorgeous" as the plate.


There is a 2-day collograph course coming up which will be the start of my research.

b.t.w. Here is Head in the garden with some dying daffs!

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