Collagraphy (sometimes spelled collography) is a
printmaking
Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed techniq ...
process introduced in 1955 by
Glen Alps
Glen Alps (1914-1996) was a printmaker and educator who is credited with having developed the collagraph. A collagraph is a print whose plate is a board or other substrate onto which textured materials are glued. The plate may be inked for printi ...
in which materials are applied to a rigid substrate (such as
paperboard
Paperboard is a thick paper-based material. While there is no rigid differentiation between paper and paperboard, paperboard is generally thicker (usually over 0.30 mm, 0.012 in, or 12 Inch#equivalences, points) than paper and has certain ...
or
wood
Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin th ...
). The word is derived from the
Greek word ''koll'' or ''kolla'', meaning
glue
Adhesive, also known as glue, cement, mucilage, or paste, is any non-metallic substance applied to one or both surfaces of two separate items that binds them together and resists their separation.
The use of adhesives offers certain advant ...
, and ''graph'', meaning the activity of
drawing
Drawing is a form of visual art in which an artist uses instruments to mark paper or other two-dimensional surface. Drawing instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, various kinds of paints, inked brushes, colored pencils, crayons, ...
.
The plate can be
intaglio-inked, inked with a roller or paintbrush or some combination thereof. Ink or pigment is applied to the resulting
collage
Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. ...
and the board is used to print onto
paper
Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distributed ...
or another material using either a
printing press
A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a printing, print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in wh ...
or various hand tools. The resulting print is termed a collagraph. Substances such as
carborundum
Silicon carbide (SiC), also known as carborundum (), is a hard chemical compound containing silicon and carbon. A semiconductor, it occurs in nature as the extremely rare mineral moissanite, but has been mass-produced as a powder and crystal sin ...
,
acrylic texture mediums, sandpapers, textiles, bubble wrap, string or other fibres, cut card, leaves and grass can all be used in creating the collagraph plate. In some instances, leaves can be used as a source of pigment by rubbing them onto the surface of the plate.
Different tonal effects and vibrant colours can be achieved with the technique due to the depth of relief and differential inking that results from the collagraph plate's highly textured surface. Collagraphy is a very open printmaking method. Ink may be applied to the upper surfaces of the plate with a
brayer for a
relief print, or ink may be applied to the entire board and then removed from the upper surfaces but remain in the spaces between objects, resulting in an
intaglio print. A combination of both intaglio and relief methods may also be employed. A
printing press
A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a printing, print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in wh ...
may or may not be used.
Donald Stoltenberg
Donald Hugo "Don" Stoltenberg (October 15, 1927March 26, 2016) was an American painter specializing in marine subjects.artfinding Biography Donald Stoltenberg (American, 1927) - Biography accessed 6/30/2015 from http://www.artfinding.com/108962/ ...
Donald Stoltenberg
Donald Hugo "Don" Stoltenberg (October 15, 1927March 26, 2016) was an American painter specializing in marine subjects.artfinding Biography Donald Stoltenberg (American, 1927) - Biography accessed 6/30/2015 from http://www.artfinding.com/108962/ ...
, well known for his use of the technique in the New England art community, authored an educational text in 1975, titled Collagraph Printmaking.
See also
*
Carborundum printmaking
Carborundum mezzotint is a printmaking technique in which the image is created by adding light passages to a dark field. It is a relatively new process invented in the US during the 1930s by Hugh Mesibov, Michael J. Gallagher, and Dox Thrash, a ...
* Artist: Donald Hugo Stoltenberg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Stoltenberg
References
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Printmaking
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