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Author: Sarah_Wittmer, Contributing Editor
| You'll need the clear polyurethane to seal the plate. Start with the back of your plate; you'll need to seal both sides (ink gets everywhere, trust me). Brush two light coats on.
Once the back's dry, flip it over and coat the front, letting it dry between each coat. If you can see brush strokes in the polyurethane once a coat dries, you're using too much. Make sure the polyurethane doesn't fill the crevices in your plate! When brushing the sealer on, get your brush into all the little nooks and crannies on your plate and make sure the poly doesn't collect around the edges, because that WILL print and you don't want that. Do 3 coats on the front. |
 | You'll need an etching press to print these. Here's our ghetto public school etching press many years older than me (a typical pattern in our school). The mess around it is typical and I have to work around that - sometimes there's even someone sitting in that chair you see in the foreground. Note the missing spoke, making it quite difficult to turn, but the press gets the job done, and that's all that matters.
If you don't have access to one of these, there are a couple of other things you can do. It's possible to print using your car. Yes, your car. You can put the paper down on some newspaper, put your plate down, cover it with more newspaper, and drive over it. If you plan on doing this, your plate is going to need to be higher than the maximum of 1/8" inch for a press - it will probably need to be at least 1/4" inch high. I haven't experimented a whole lot with this, but you're welcome to and post your results in the printmaking forum. |
| Also, a relief press will work. Here's what timelady said about using a relief press (book press, or pressing by hand) with collagraphs:
"It's more difficult and the reverse areas will print. With an intaglio press used here the press squeezes out the ink from the gaps and cracks. A relief press works the opposite way, printing what is on the highest areas of the plate. So ink up appropriately. For example, if you put glue on an entire plate and then carved in lines with a sharp tool, then inked the plate. On intaglio press you'd wipe the ink off and get an outline image on white. On a relief press you'd leave more ink on and get a white outline within a black printed page. Make sense? With collograph I find that experimenting is the best way - I can never visualise quite how they will print." |
| Before you print, you need to wet your paper. It doesn't really matter exactly how you get it wet, as long as both sides are wet and the paper can soak in that water. For printing, the paper should be . . . flexible, for lack of a better word. See image on right; if it does that, your paper's wet enough.
When you print, however, make sure there's no shiny spots of wetness on the paper. The paper must be damp, not drowning in water. |  |
| With collagraphs, you'll get a nice etching/embossing in addition to whatever ink you put on. If you're interested in getting a few of these prints, do that before you mess with ink. Also, there's no use in doing the inking process only to find that the pressure on your press is way wrong.
Simply lay a sheet of newsprint (not newspaper - anything printed on the surface your paper touches will become part of your final print, so unless you want an advertisement for a used 1993 VW Bug on the puppy prints you've worked so hard on, I suggest you stay far away from newspaper) on your wool blanket, then lay down your damp paper and the plate face down on that paper, then another sheet of newsprint and the other blanket. Turn the handles and run it through the press. |
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