Two-day Collograph Workshop over two weekends

Happy New Year

The following is about my next workshop on Collograph making and printing. The second day of the course will largely involve you printing up the plates you will have already made under instruction on day one.
This workshop is for anyone interested in printmaking and who doesn’t like using acid, in printmaking.

The Collograph printmaking process is acid-free and it can be a very expressive and intuitive medium. All stages of the process will be explained and demonstrated throughout the day.

On day one, you will make a number of plates and you will ink up some readymade small examples of collograph plates. You will also learn how to soak paper and proof a plate among the anecdotes, I will doubtless include each day.

The process involves applying (or flicking) carborundum ( a synthetic sandy powder of different grades), combined with an acrylic resin, using acetate sheets as bases or ‘plates’.

You can get a range of tones from different carborundum grades and you can scratch in to the acetate base/plate for line work. The collograph can make a very powerful image in monotone , where you can create tones from dark to very light with one colour.

Collograph plates will be inked with oil based ink and they can be cleaned off with vegetable oil instead of white spirit.
Like all printmaking mediums, collograph can be messy but enjoyable and the process delivers elements of surprise when proofing/taking your first print, as in developing a photograph, where you never know exactly the result, until the plate is printed through the etching press.

It is also a cheap and an editionable printmaking medium and it is highly regarded as some of the best printmakers have proven. Take a minute to look up the boldness and colour of figurative work by Ken Kiff and the expressive marks and visceral quality of collograph works by the likes of Hughie O’Donoghue.

It is fun and it is a great process for an introduction to printmaking, delivering both random and precise marks.

As well as tonal values , the collograph offers embossing, so you will have a raised and a pitted surface from the one plate. It’s tactile nature is something I am exploring, simply for it’s ability to convey line and contour through touch alone. The collograph offers too, a richness of marks which can compete with an impression made by it’s acid guzzling opponent, aquatint.

The second day of the collograph course will involve proofing up or printing your own plates and further improving how to apply the ink and wipe it down in preparation to print…. I’m using a lot of alliteration here….>>what about some more, Pick up a Pencil group is pleased to present a positively perfect printmaking process for particularly curious and persistent participants…

Have I convinced you? I hope so.

Please contact me to book a place > maximum number 8 < and for (even) more details.