Collagraph Print from Mat Board with Akua Inks

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Collagraph Print from Mat Board with Akua Inks

Here is a small Collagraph Print from Mat Board with Akua Inks. I printed this last Sunday as part of a demonstration for my Mastrius group. (Our next session is Sunday, April 9th at 10:00am Pacific Time, and we’re going over gelli plate drawing transfers. Want to join us?)

Rather than building the image up, by adding things to the plate, I’m removing material from the mat board, to create recessed “wells” that will hold printmaking ink.

The inking and wiping and printing of this plate is intaglio (the word is Italian for engraved) style, or printed from the recessed areas. Have you tried this method?

Akua Inks

My first printmaking experiments were done with traditional, oil-based printmaking inks that required solvents or cooking oil and dish soap to clean up. When I learned about soy bean oil based, water-wash-up Akua inks, they were still a mom-and-pop ink shop, created and sold by Susan Rostow.

Speedball now owns Akua, and I still use their inks in my studio. My favorite things about them are the rich pigment load in each color, the excellent customer service, and the fact that I can leave them out on a sheet of plexiglass (see above photo) for weeks at a time and they won’t skin-over. These inks need absorption to dry, so they stay workable on a sheet of glass or acrylic for a long time.

I use a lot of Akua transparent base with my prints, to create transparency in hue and color, as well as Akua’s MagMix to thicken the inks, and Carborundum paste for more control over adherence on various plate characteristics.

Collagraph Print Post Roundup

Here are some of the most popular and visited posts on this blog related to making collagraph prints.

• Here is How to Make a collagraph print from a sheet of mat board, and it includes a demo video.

• Collagraph plates and prints can be made in a variety of ways, so this post covers some of your options.

• This collagraph print tutorial shows how to build a plate with kid-grade construction paper.

• If you’ve ever wondered about inking a collagraph plate with multiple colors, this post is a great place to start.

• Carborundum is loose sand paper grit, and it’s useful in collagraph plate building like this.

• I created a playlist of collagraph plate and print tutorials on my YouTube channel.

•  If you want a printable list of supplies to make a collagraph plate – with links, you can find a collagraph Supply List here.

Printmaking as Meditation

I’ve been asked (many times) what attracts me to printmaking. The folks who are curious are usually knit-browed by their perception of steps, sequence, supplies and work to create an edition of prints.

First you have to build the plate, and then you have to ink it, and sometimes you wipe the ink partially away from the uppermost surface of the plate, and then you have to press that to paper and rub the back of the paper into the plate, or run it through a press, and eegads, that sounds like So Much Work.

Making art is a meditation. Creating can be a form of journal-keeping. Working with your hands is a one way to feel accomplished. At the very least, art making on a regular basis is a documentation of the incremental improvements of all of your creative skill sets.

Printmaking is a celebration of a conviction to be with yourself, focused on that zone of sequential rhythm while you make something lovely. Give yourself (gift yourself?) some time to dabble in that.

Thanks for stopping by, and I’ll see you in the next post –

Belinda

P.S. Sktchy is hosting another challenge to paint or draw 30 Faces in 30 Days. If you get more motivated by joining a group project, consider this one.

Splash Spectacles – 5×7 Hand Pulled Collagraph print – available in my Etsy Shop here

Art Quote

Take chances, make mistakes. That’s how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.

Mary Tyler Moore

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