Textured and Combination Monoprints: Urban or Industrial Landscape - Final Attempt

When I attended the collagraph/monoprint workshop at Leeds Print Workshop, it occurred to me that the combination of tapes we used to create texture (duck tape, anti-slip tape, masking tape, foil tape and many more) would be ideal for creating the textures of an industrial landscape. The tapes themselves are also used by plumbers and in industrial settings so I liked the idea of using them to produce a print representing their usual habitat. 

I first created a collagraph type plate with several layers of tape. I didn't do any pre-planning of this plate - I just used the shapes I had in my head from previous attempts to represent this subject and let it develop as I went along. I decided to try to create a sense of depth to the landscape by using different tapes for the foreground, middle ground and background areas. I used the thickest tape for the foreground shapes which was the anti-slip tape. This is like thick sandpaper and produces a speckled texture on printing. 
I used duck tape for the mid ground elements which has a texture caused by the threads within it. For the background buildings I used masking tape which has quite a close texture. I attempted to create an impression of smoke from the chimneys by applying crumpled foil tape (the type used for sealing chimneys and ducts) I quite like the irony that I am representing smoke by using tape that is used to keep smoke contained!

I started off by printing directly from the collagraph plate onto cratridge paper. I first printed in process yellow then overprinted in process magenta and indigo. There were some parts of this print that I really liked. The bright yellow haloes around the foreground chimneys, the subtle gradation of indigo and red on the background shapes and the sky as well as the texture for the smoke all worked quite well (although the smoke looked a bit too solid). However I had not managed to register the print well enough and the slight offset created a bizarre effect with the foreground shapes. The offsetting of the little dots of colour produced by the anti-slip tape made my eyes go funny! It reminds me of a blurred photograph or interference on a tv screen and is difficult to look at. 

Three layer collagraph print in yellow, magenta and indigo

I took a second 'ghost' print of the plate onto wet cartridge paper (intaglio technique) - this transferred mainly indigo ink but with very small amounts of the magenta and yellow which remained on the plate. It picked out more detail of the texture of the duck tape.

Single layer collagraph print on soaked cartridge paper

I proceeded next to adapt this collagraph into a monoprinting technique by offsetting the image onto a monoprint plate to allow me to manipulate it further.  I re-inked the cardboard collagraph plate with a combination of yellow and indigo. I then placed a plastic monoprinting plate of the same size directly over it and sandwiched the two between layers of newsprint before passing them through the etching press together. This transferred the ink from the collagraph plate to the monoprint plate. There was still a small amount of red on the collagraph plate so this also transferred especially in the area of the smoke and age background buildings. 

After obtaining my offset image on the monoprint plate I was free to adapt it further. I used cloth and scrim to wipe into the sky and to break up the outline of the foil smoke shapes. I also used the tip of a sharpened pencil to draw windows into the distant building. I pulled the print onto cartridge paper using the etching press. I was quite pleased with this result. Note that the image is reversed by the offset printing process. 

Offset collagraph monoprint three colour print with subtractive
drawing on cartridge paper

I took a second print from this monoprint plate onto coated paper

Second pass 'ghost'  monoprint as above

I then cleaned my monoprint plate and re-inked my collagraph plate with plenty of red and yellow ink. I offset this again onto the clean monoprint pate. This time I decided to accentuate the foreground instead of drawing into the background. I rolled indigo ink onto the monoprint plate and wiped away to leave only foreground chimney shapes. I got a bit confused as to which chimneys were on which side of the print and plate so the shapes are not accurate reproductions of the printed shapes underneath but this adds additional depth to the foreground. The registration is slightly off. 

Multilayer collagraph monoprint

I took a ghost print from this and then overprinted again with additional yellow. The registration was not great but his gave a dirty smudgy effect which I think is quite appropriate for the subject matter. I realised it was time to stop at this point before I managed to create mud from too many layers of mixed colours. 

Multilayer collagraph monoprint

What I learnt

• A makeshift collagraph plate can be used to create landscape textures
• Offsetting the collagraph onto another plate allows additional manipulation of the image
• Spontaneous working without too much planning is sometimes better that having too fixed an idea of the outcome you want as it allows you to respond to whet actually happens when you print