Artist Statement

I find making the plates for collagraphs a very natural and sympathetic process. Using scissors and glue, I create these compositions with whatever materials come to hand.

These simple surfaces are revealed by the alchemy of the ink to be dense with incident. The smallest change in level will express its nature in the printed image.

These images share many of the same pictorial concerns that feed the woodcuts in a A Magpie's Folio—not too surprising as I was working on both sets of images over the same period.

Technical Notes

Collagraphs are also known as collage prints. The traditional metal plate of the intaglio print is replaced by heavy cardboard or fibreboard. I use heavy millboard.

The plate is prepared by cutting the millboard to size, beveling all 4 edges and coating it on both faces with several coats of diluted acrylic media.

A variety of collage elements are then glued to the plate to create the image. Once the collage is complete, another coat of acrylic media is used to seal the composition.

This series of collagraphs was inked and printed in the intaglio manner. I card etching ink over the plate surface as sparingly as possible. I warm the plate and use a very inky tarlatan at first to ensure that the ink has indeed contacted the entire top surface of the plate.

While still on the hotplate, I switch to a less inky tarlatan for the majority of the wipe, until the image begins to emerge. I then finish the wipe cold with paper. I use the paper from old telephone directories for this part of the process.

I printed these plates on etching presses either in my own studio or at Martha Street on dampened German Copperplate.