Sandpaper and Cardboard Collagraph Print

A collagraph print is made using a collage type method of printmaking, and it's one of the most flexible forms of printmaking. You can make collagraph plates using a lot of different materials and methods, and you can print them using both relief and intaglio methods (sometimes both at once!) This tutorial will show you how to make a collagraph print from cardboard and sandpaper, hand coloured with drawing ink. I cover all the steps for making and printing a collagraph print using intaglio methods.

Stiff cardboard

Sandpaper (experiment with different grades of grit)

Rice paste glue (any glue is fine)

Steel ruler

Cutting mat

Utility knife

Scalpel knife

Pen

Shellac flakes, methylated spirits and glass jar for mixing shellac sealant

Etching ink

Perspex, glass or tile to use as an inking slab

Paint/ink knife

Small piece of rubber, eraser or stiff cardboard for spreading ink

Tarlatan cloth/scrim

Phone book or newspaper

Latex type gloves (or non-latex equivalent)

Printmaking paper suitable for intaglio (I used Zerkall 120gsm laid etching paper)

Wet sponge or water spray bottle

Ziplock bag or plastic container with lid

Etching press (the pasta machine etching press from this instructable can be used as an alternative https://www.instructables.com/Mini-Pasta-Machine-... )

Etching press blankets

Citrus-based art/paint cleaner

Cleaning gloves

Rag

Drawing ink

Ink brush

Newsprint paper

Paint scraper

To make a collagraph plate, you'll need to stick materials to a piece of stiff cardboard. In this example, I wanted to use text, so I started by making a rough drawing of my design.

When I was happy with the design, I drew out the elements I'd need on the back of a piece of sandpaper, then cut them out with a sharp scalpel blade.

To stick pieces in place, I covered the whole front of the cardboard base with glue (I used rice glue because it's fast drying and will break down naturally when I throw my collagraph plate away, but a glue stick or PVA would also work), then I stuck my pieces of sandpaper right side up on the cardboard.

The reason for covering the whole face of the cardboard with glue is that the glue can affect how the plate looks when you've inked it up; if you want a uniform finish, it's best to cover the entire surface, although experimentation is encouraged.

You'll notice that the design and letters are back to front when stuck down on the cardboard. With intaglio printing, you always need your design to be mirrored on the plate so that when you run it through the press it prints the right way around.

When everything was stuck down, I used my scalpel blade to make some decorative incisions in the cardboard that would hold ink and print as lines.

Shellac, also known as French Polish, is a natural sealant. The flakes are made from resin deposits made by lac beetles on tree branches. These flakes are scraped off the branches and can be dissolved in methylated spirits (denatured ethanol) to make a liquid sealant. As the methylated spirits evaporates, the shellac dries into a thin film of resin on your surface.

To mix a shellac sealant, add few spoonfuls of shellac flakes to an old glass jar and pour enough methylated spirits in to cover the flakes. Leave these for a while until the flakes have dissolved.

Shellac is the perfect sealant for making collagraph plates. It dries thinly and quickly, and seals the plate well against moisture. Collagraph plates need to be waterproof so that they're not ruined by ink, cleaning liquids or water in the printing stages. The shellac also helps the stuck on pieces bond very strongly to the plate, so they're unlikely to dislodge when you're inking up your plate.

Paint on at least two layers of shellac sealant on all sides of your plate, leaving to dry between each coat. You can clean the shellac from your brush using methylated spirits. I also dissolved a little of the shellac on top of each sandpaper letter with a little metho to be sure that it hadn't clogged up the texture of the sandpaper.

Intaglio is a style of printing where the ink collects in the grooves and textures on your plate. When you run the plate through an etching press with paper, the pressure forces the paper into those grooves, and the ink is transferred to the paper. To make this easier, the paper needs to be damp when it is printed, as it's much easier to push the damp paper into the grooves of the plate.

There are multiple ways of dampening your paper. My preferred method is to tear my paper down to size the night before I print, then wipe or spay each piece of paper with a small amount of water. I package up my stack of wet paper in a ziplock bag or sealable plastic container and leave it overnight. The water absorbs through the paper stack and the next day the paper is good and damp, ready for printing without need for blotting.

If you have access to an etching press, you can set it with blankets as you would to print an etching. The blankets help transfer the pressure of the press evenly over your printing plate and paper.

The most common blanket setup is to use a 3mm and a 6mm blanket. In my example, I used three blankets: a 1.5mm, 3mm and 6mm. Always set your blankets up with the finest blanket closest to the press bed and the thickest blanket closest to the top roller.

If you are printing a collagraph plate that has a lot of different items stuck to it at different heights, be sure to use only one old and thick blanket. It can be very easy to damage a press blanket if your plate has a lot of height discrepancy or hard objects on it. If you're only using sandpaper and cardboard as shown in this example, you should be fine with the normal blanket setup.

I set the press pressure by centring the rollers over a clean piece of cardboard the same thickness as my plate, and check that the pressure is even by running the press through with a piece of scrap paper and checking the resultant embossing is even. If you can't see any embossing, there is not enough pressure. If you tear the paper or it's too hard to roll the press over the plate, you need to loosen the pressure.

Etching presses are expensive and not always accessible. You may be able to use an etching press in an open access print studio in your community or at your college/university art department, but if you can't, you can use a Pasta Machine etching press to print this type of plate. See my Pasta Machine Press instructable for instructions on how to build and use one of these.

Put on a pair of thin latex (or equivalent) gloves to keep your hands clean, as inking up an intaglio plate can be a messy process.

Place a small amount of your etching ink onto a piece of hard plastic, heavy duty glass slab or a glazed ceramic tile. Loosen the ink up a bit by mixing it with your paint knife.

Different brands of etching ink will give different results and are suitable for different types of imagery, depending on the consistency of the ink. If you find your particular ink is too loose and wipes away too easily, you can modify it with magnesium carbonate powder to stiffen it. If you find your ink is too stiff, you can modify it with linseed plate oil to loosen it. You'll need to experiment a little and see what works for your particular image.

To get the ink onto your plate, pick up a little of it with a rubber eraser, a piece of old screen printing squeegee, an old plastic card or a piece of stiff cardboard, then drag this across the surface of your plate until the areas you want ink in are covered.

Scrunch up a 1x1m piece of tarlatan cloth (a kind of open weave cheesecloth that has been stiffened with glue) and use this to push the ink into the grooves of the plate while also wiping excess ink from the surface.

The second stage of wiping the plate involves taking a page of old phone book or newspaper, and wiping it flat against the surface of the plate to clear away any excess ink. Keep your hand flat so that you don't wipe away too much.

Clean up the edges of your plate with a rag if you need to before printing the plate.

You'll need to repeat this inking process for every print that you make from your plate.

If you're not making a bleed print, make yourself a template for registering your paper and plate so that the image prints in the same place every time you run it through the press. I keep a piece of acetate plastic on top of my steel press bed, and one of the reasons for this is I can slip a registration guide underneath it if I need to. The print I'm making in this example is a bleed print, so registration was not something I needed here.

Place your plate face up roughly in the centre of the press bed for the most even ink distribution.

With clean hands, place a piece of your dampened paper on top of the plate, then place a piece of newsprint down (if you're making a bleed print like me) to stop excess ink from around the edges of your plate getting onto your blankets.

Gently lower your blankets over the plate and paper, and roll your print through. You should only need to roll your print through the press in one direction.

To stack your work so that the prints dry and flatten at the same time, place a piece of stiff cardboard down, followed by a piece of clean newsprint, then lay out your prints on top. When you've filled up a board, place a second sheet of newsprint on top followed by a second piece of stiff cardboard. Repeat this process in a stack until your entire edition of prints is done.

When you've finished printing, stack any extra cardboard sheets on top and weigh them down lightly with a heavy book or light weights if you need to. Leave the stack of prints at least overnight, preferably two nights, before unstacking them. When you do, they will be dry and flat.

Put on some cleaning gloves to protect your hands.

Clean any ink away from the press bed with a rag and some citrus-based cleaner. I use a citrus-based oil paint brush cleaner, which works really well and is far less toxic and smelly than using turpentine. Wipe over the press bed a second time with a clean paper towel to catch any excess ink.

Clean any excess ink off your printing plate and tools using the same cleaner.

Scrape your inking slab with a paint scraper tool, wiping the excess ink on some of your scrap phone book pages or newsprint from earlier before disposing of them.

Clean up the excess ink remaining on your slab with a rag and either the citrus-based cleaner or some vegetable oil.

After a couple of days have passed, you can carefully unstack your prints.

If you want to add colour, you can do this by hand using watercolour, coloured pencils or any number of other methods. I hand painted my prints using two colours of shellac based drawing ink, applied using an ink brush. By overlapping the colours, I was able to produce a third colour.

If you've made a bleed print and need to trim or tear excess paper away, you can do this now, before titling and signing your edition.