A printmaking activity to encourage your creative process

This post is about exploring your own creative process; not trying to make a finished print, but arranging a session for yourself (or perhaps with a friend) with some secure boundaries that will free you up to experiment without expectations.

This activity involves combining collagraph and mono printing techniques, and working quite fast to make lots of different prints from the same plate.

On a recent viscosity inking course in my studio I encouraged students to create a simple collagraph plate with plenty of smooth empty space to allow for some experimental inking. This is a great exercise to try if you want to push your own work regarding inking plates and using colour. I decided to base the post on the prints June Russell created on the course, as they illustrate the process really well. Thanks for sharing June! The images in this post are just a small selection from the sequence of prints June made from a simple card plate.

Create some time and space without distractions

As with anything needing focus, if you break off or allow yourself to get distracted you can lose momentum, and this makes it hard to get back into the flow. You don’t need to hang the washing out / read that message / check if you turned the gas off. All these are secondary to your creative activities!

Do your best to sort out any potential distractions before you get started, so you have the best chance to lose yourself in the creative process.

Making a plate with space

It can be very difficult to make a ‘simple’ collagraph plate, especially when there are so many textures and techniques to play around with. Aim for a minimal plate which has at least 60% empty space with a smooth surface. You may only need a few lines, or a shape with some positive and negative space to get started. The basic collagraph structure helps to keep you focussed – while allowing space for improvisation and experimentation with mono printing and viscosity inking. This is the same principle explored in the ‘printing from staples’ post – deliberate limitations are actually benefit your creativity by stretching your ingenuity.

Junes plate was made from smooth shiny mirror board stuck to mount-board for rigidity. Some drypoint lines made with a darning needle gently suggest a horizon, and left plenty of space above for mono printing.

Prepare to print

Before you start your session prepare a stack of paper. Pre-soak half your sheets and then stack them one wet one dry and leave overnight with a weight on top. Having paper ready to use leaves you free to concentrate on the inking and printing, without having to prepare individual sheets of paper as you go.

Also select a few colours and ideally a couple of rollers so you have everything ready in advance for your session.

Relief rolls

The first prints are made simply by rolling layers of coloured ink over the plate.

Subsequent prints have intaglio ink rubbed in to the drypoint areas before rolling ink over the whole plate and adjusting it with masks and viscosity techniques.

Masking is your super-power

With a very simple plate, masking will hugely increase the range of possibilities and variations. We used mainly torn newspaper and thread, these give contrasting effects – the ripped edges of newspaper are soft and organic (you could cut shapes out, but that takes more time) and the thread is linear and more delicate. It is possible to mask the plate every time you roll, overlapping masked and unmasked areas to generate layers of shape and colour. The irregular white dots were made by sprinkling talc onto the inked up plate to create a mask.

Viscosity inking

As it was a viscosity course, viscosity inking is a theme running through the prints. The hand prints are made by wiping a tiny amount of baby oil on and then pressing palms and fingers on to the clean plate. The first coloured relief roll of oil based ink picks up a thin layer of baby oil, revealing the delicate lines and wrinkles in the hand print.

Viscosity inking also involves removing areas of ink form the relief roll by wiping or scraping it away. The subsequent roll with stiffer ink will fill the empty spaces.

These methods will only work if you have left smooth empty areas on your plate.

What effect does colour have – mood emotion – atmosphere

This series of prints makes it obvious how colour changes everything. The landscape goes from cool and frosty, to misty, to fiery. Do not clean your plate in between prints – just add more colour. The traces of what went before will show through, giving your prints more depth and subtlety.

Know when to take a break

It may be fun for a while but you will most likely reach a point where you feel stuck. Don’t give up – try to push on through the stuck feeling as that is often the point when your creativity really starts to come alive.

However, it is important to recognise when you really do need a break – step away from the work and get a drink (chocolate biscuits help too). This actually is hard work, no-one said it was easy. The main thing is to return refreshed after your break, so avoid cramming little jobs in like answering emails – give yourself a breather and forget the to-do list.

Alter or adapt your plate

The beauty of simple cardboard plates is that they can easily be altered, and you may feel you have reached your limit with the plate as it is. This could be time to cut into the surface and remove areas to create new rough dark intaglio (or light relief) marks. June stuck extra layers of torn and shiny paper on top of the drypoint, which added complexity to the lower part of the plate. Don’t go mad – you still need to keep some empty spaces! 

When to really stop

You may have a time deadline, or your paper might run out. At some point you will feel you have reached the end of the session. Colours may be getting muddy, you drop things, you don’t want to look at the image any more! No problem, the creative process is like this, it has a rhythm and a cycle. Enjoy cleaning up the inks as a way of concluding the session. Remember not to throw any prints away – save that for the morning when things can look different. 

Keep things simple to enable more experimental inking

The aim of the activity is to allow the process to lead you, and allow yourself to respond to whatever happens in your prints as they progress. A simple plate and fairly quick inking techniques help to keep everything moving along. Hopefully you will become really absorbed in the inking, and each print will provide inspiration for the next one. Be prepared for an intense creative process, especially if you avoid judging the work as you go, or trying to plan too much ahead, both of which will interrupt your flow.

After the dust has settled take a look at what you have produced. (Ideally after a good nights sleep – things often look different the next day). Collect your sequence of prints into a concertina book, or sketchbook, and write a commentary. Consider what you can take from the experience of allowing yourself to follow the process. How could this approach affect your future work?