Project: Getting the mix right.

The 2026 theme for the Southern Printmakers Association print swap is Industry and I’ve created an edition of 6 x A5 collagraph prints as per their instructions.

Using mountboard as my base this was a wholly additive process, no layers were cut from the board.

Pieces of cardboard were cut to create the funnels & feeding tubes, the jugs and trays. Self-adhesive aluminium tape was applied in the trays and texture medium was roughly applied to the ‘machine’ background.

Gloss medium was selectively painted over the plate without covering the textural background sections. By applying multiple layers in some areas it is possible to wipe away more ink, thereby creating either a light tonal background or allowing the white paper to show through once printed. This becomes obvious in the printed outcome.

Once the prints were pulled and dried, and using acrylic paints, I added the colours to indicate the colour mixing component.

The tip from this post is that acrylic paint will not sit comfortably on top of oil-based printing inks. You need to ensure there is no printing ink in the areas you wish to colour.

From the print above it’s easy to see how multiple layers of gloss varnish allowed me to entirely clean away the ink from the feeding tubes, funnels and the base of each jug. It’s impossible to see from the original plate photo but the top of each jug had 2 very light varnish layers whilst the base of each had around 5 layers. Hence the vibrant clean appearance of the paint.

Ink also completely wipes away from metal tape, in this case aluminium, and that has given the tray interiors a clean white appearance.