Collagraphs by Hand

I made a design from a picture in a European city to show the urban environment with lots of different shapes and textures . But as I no longer had access to an etching press these prints show my attempts at making collagraphs by hand, that is, without a press. The plates were made entirely from cardboard, paper, masking tape and tissue paper. One is printed on yellow Japanese paper which is quite absorbent, the other on thicker Japanese paper which was dampened to make it softer.

It was much harder applying ink, wiping off ink where I had applied varnish to make lighter tones and rubbing on the back by hand when it wasn't possible to see exactly what you were rubbing. Of course trying to print with two colours on the same plate was also quite hard as it wasn't possible to blend the colours in the design. Nevertheless there are some interesting shapes and textures and it was fun spending an autumn day working on the prints.