Paper Quilts: Collagraph Texture

Quilters piece fabric into patterns. A collagraph printmaker pieces texture into a plate, then prints it onto paper. Put enough of those prints side by side and you get a paper quilt: a grid of bright, tactile blocks that rewards close looking.

Building the plate

Start with a stiff substrate: mat board, chipboard or thin MDF. Glue on anything flat-ish with an interesting surface:

• Lace, tulle, burlap and cheesecloth
• Torn paper, corrugated card with the top layer peeled away
• Leaves and grasses (pressed flat first)
• Carborundum grit mixed into acrylic medium, for velvety darks
• Gesso or modeling paste dragged with a comb

Keep everything below about 3 mm, or the paper will tear in the press. Seal the finished plate front and back with two coats of acrylic medium or shellac so it doesn't absorb ink and fall apart.

Inking: intaglio, relief or both

Intaglio: push ink into the plate with a card, then wipe the high points with tarlatan. Ink stays in the recesses and the rough textures, which print as rich darks.

Relief: roll ink over the surface with a brayer, the way you would a linocut. Now the high points print.

À la poupée and combined inking: wipe a dark color into the recesses, then roll a bright color over the top. This is where collagraphs glow: two colors from one plate in a single pass.

Piecing the quilt

Print a series of small plates (4 to 6 inches works well) in a limited palette. Lay them out on the floor and move them around like quilt blocks until the rhythm feels right. Then either mount them in a grid on a single backing sheet, or stitch them together with a sewing machine set to a long stitch. More on that in Stitches and Folds.

Collagraphs are one of the techniques covered in our printmaking guide, alongside monotypes, linocuts and etchings.

Questions