Last Collagraph Class

Thursday was my last collagraph class at the League.  It was a great group of students, and I will miss seeing them every Thursday.  We celebrated the end of class by going out to the Hornet after class.  We missed you Anthony, you should have come along with us!

The class prints

Kerrie's great little print on grey paper

Another of Kerrie's prints

Sabyl's swirly print

Sabyl's grid of little squares

Simone's collagraph printed from corrugated board

Another version of Simone's lady in the trees

Mark's great print from a masonite plate with metal pieces nailed into it.  Getting the proper printing pressure was tricky since the nail heads tended to cut the paper.

Thanks everyone for a great class!

Collagraph Class Number Four

For such a simple printmaking technique, it is so surprising how many variations can be obtained with collagraph printmaking.  The class is making really beautiful prints as you can see below.  Only one more class to go!

Simone inking her plate

Simone's print, the tree branches are not inked, but simply embossed on the paper

Victoria's plate made mostly of wallpaper samples

Victoria's print

Sabyl's print

Two of Anthony's prints

Two versions of Kerrie's prints-she claims to have no previous printmaking experience, but we all think she's a ringer.  Her prints are so simple and lovely.

Collagraph Class Number Three

The collagraph class I'm teaching at the League is well under way.  It is fun to see what everyone worked on during the week in between, and how their prints turned out.

All of the prints pinned up 

Simone's relief rolled collagraph - we all thought it looked like an Oprah tree

Two versions of Sabyl's print

Sabyl's plate on the left, and the print pulled from it on the right

Mark silk-screened the orange ropes on the paper before printing the dark rope shape over it. He made the collagraph plate for this image by silk-screening gel medium on to mat board, and sprinkling carborundum into it to make a photo-collagraph.  After it dried, the plate was sealed, and then printed.  

Victoria's nests.  Her plates were made with raffia and string glued down to mat board   

The print on the left, pulled from the plate on the right

Collagraph Class Number Two

Last night was the second session of my collagraph class at the League.  Some students came in ready to work, and others were still building their plates.  Here are some photos of the first prints they pulled.

Mark's first collagraph print

Herb's figure collagraph

This cute little collagraph is printed from buttons!  The right one was printed first, then without cleaning the plate, yellow was rolled with a brayer over it and printed again for the print on the left

Sabyl's sampler plate

The print from Sabyl's plate

A "ghost" print of Sabyl's plate.  It is simply reprinted without reapplying more ink.  The plate still has residual "ghost" ink.  Sometimes the ghosts look better than the first print pulled

Two slight variations of the same print

Collagraph Class at the league

On Thursday last week I started teaching a collagraph class at the Art Students League of Denver.  No matter which class I'm teaching, most of the first night is spent with my introductory lecture and demonstration.  It isn't until the second class that the students get going on their own projects.


Collagraph (glue writing) printmaking is primarily an additive process used to make collaged printing plates. Materials are glued or painted on a plate that can be printed as an intaglio plate, or rolled with a brayer and printed in relief, or printed in combination with each other.

Some of my collagraph plate demonstrations

Left; The collaged plate  Right; the print pulled from it.  Ink is wiped into the recesses(intaglio wipe), and the surface is wiped clean.  Smoother surfaces do not hold ink as well as textured surfaces.

Left; The plate  Right; The print that was first intaglio wiped, and then surface rolled with a blue ink on top

Two prints pulled form the same plate. The right print was surface rolled with a light blue ink over a dark ink

I will post more photos as the class prints their own projects.  Tomorrow will be the next session.

Reduction Woodcut Printmaking Workshop Number Two

Last night was session number two of my woodcut reduction workshop. Most of the students were still working on their images, and hadn't started carving yet except for Larry. He had a funny story of how he prepared his wood block at home. Before going to bed, he drew the image on to the block with marker and sealed it with some old polycrylic he had. It was thick, and blobby, but he used it anyway. In the morning, the marker drawing had bled, and the polycrylic had run and pooled into one corner which was still wet. Little air bubbles were all over the surface of his block from the sealant. I thought it looked like a collagraph surface, and that he should go with it instead of starting over. In the process of making art, instead of calling it a mistake, it's called a happy accident. Larry wasn't so sure if he was that happy about it, but went ahead and started carving the block, bubbles and all.

Larry and his wood block

Larry's bubbly surfaced wood block that he began to carve