Make an Intaglio Style Collagraph Print

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Make an Intaglio Style Collagraph Print

I’ve been making a collagraph print from a scrap sheet of mat board, carved with a number 11 facto knife blade and sealed a glossy acrylic varnish. Sealing the plate with varnish is the final step to make a paper-product sturdy enough to pull a print from.

A girl and her cat are my subjects, and the shape of the composition reminds me of a figure eight, or an ampersand (&).

What is intaglio style? The word in Italian (intagliare) means to incase, carve or engrave. In printmaking, intaglio refers to printing from ink in the recessed areas of a plate. Relief printing refers to printing from the uppermost or top surface of a plate.

In Praise of Lines

Most collagraph prints shared online feature graphic shapes, printed from plates that have been built up in a topographic approach.

With traditional collagraph prints, you’re inking both intaglio and relief style, and printing from all surface levels of the plate. Happy accidents with ink transferred from the curb of a raised shape, as well as the shape itself are common wonders in collagraph prints.

Choose Your Collagraph Printmaking Approach

I love drawing, and line work. Approaching collagraph prints using only intaglio can give your prints a very “drawn line” feel. Details translate effectively with narrow, and shallow incised line work cut from a sheet of scrap mat board.

In the photo below, you can see the image is more of a drawn portrait, featuring lots of incised lines. The final print will look very different than a collagraph created by adding layers of other materials and adhering them to the plate.

What Are You Working On?

So, collagraph prints are nudging each other for space and process over here in my studio.

I’ve got several more in the queue, so you can subscribe here if you want to be sure to catch them. What are you working on? Leave me some details in the comments.

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

Belinda

P.S. This is a fun essay in The New Yorker about a woman who didn’t start making art till she was in her 50’s and now, in her 90’s, she’s totally immersed in it.

Art Quote

You never see a five year old walk past an old drawing and say “Ya know, I really have to change the tail on that dragon. I didn’t make it long enough.”  They instinctively know that the moment to draw that dragon has come and gone. And they’re okay with that. They start a new drawing of a dragon instead. With a better tail.
It’s easy for a kid to have that mentality, because they don’t have any baggage yet.  Adults have plenty of baggage. I call it art-baggage. We are overly precious, we fall in love with everything that we do. We’ve collected this long list of rule-sets about when a painting is finished, about mixing colors, about composition, about how to set up your palette, and it kind of squeezes the life out of the process of painting.

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