Collagraph Research - Suzie Mackenzie

An artist I have discovered who uses collagraph is Suzie Mackenzie. The landscapes she creates make great use of the textural possibilities of this medium. She also uses chine colle in her work. These prints are printed intaglio.

Taken from collagraph tutorial Access Art

The collagraph has been used to create subtle textures in this work,  instead the interest comes from the shapes and contrast of the trees. Much of the texture comes from chine colle used to create the sky background. There is high value contrast in this print, creating great emphasis on the trees.

The Estuary, Summer Evening 2016.

This print uses value and texture to create depth. The furthest hills are paler. The shimmering lightest areas of water really lead the eye around the image. These simple devices make a simple image make visual sense without lots of detail or big range of colors. These textures are really effective in impressionistic landscapes.

There is a really big range of values in this print, which are used to great effect by the artist. The sparse use of color also has great impact. It is very interesting to see how much can be achieved with so little. The print feels like a very rich, deep composition, but in fact it is composed of a small number of elements, texture, values and colors. It is the strength of the composition that makes this effective. 

I'm not sure whether relief printed collagraph is capable of such a big range of tonal values.

Both of these prints use one colour of ink and the other colors are created by chine colle.

Detail of process:

Mount board used as base.

Acrylic medium painted on for lightest areas

Plain mount board next coarsest, therefore the next darkest

Peel off layers of board for rougher texture

Textured paper, rougher again

Carobondum grit + pva for darkest areas.

Builders wood glue  + water, very thin dont fill gaps, to make sure everything is stuck down

spray varnish

Printed intaglio with damp paper in an etching press

The range of textures available make this a very appealing technique to try, although very challenging, and will require access to a press. Working with texture like this would be an interesting contrast to the linocut designs I have produced so far.