10. Combined Intaglio and Collagraph
After drying and curing most acrylic grounds are much harder than comparable oil-based grounds. In fact, they are so durable that they can be used directly as a surface to be printed from using an intaglio press. With the acrylic resist etching system there are numerous ways of combining the intaglio etch with collagraph techniques.
If patches of Speedball or acrylic stop-out varnish are painted directly onto a plate, these will print in a manner similar to open bite patches but with a somewhat softer appearance. This direct painting method can be used on a plate that already bears an intaglio structure such as an aquatint or deep open bite. All marks applied to the plate will appear as white highlights or shapes in front of the darker background provided by the etched work. Many over etched plates can be turned into successful compositions using this inverted mark making method.
The mixed intaglio-collagraph method can be compared to mezzotint where the artist works from dark to light. It can even be used as a faster substitute for the scraping and burnishing processes of mezzotint. As opposed to mechanical mezzotint, mistakes are easily corrected – simply strip off the overlaid acrylics from the roughened metal plate and start again!
Printing sizeable editions is possible because of the durability of the acrylic marks. In some cases proofs can be taken from plates that are being etched in stages without having to remove the acrylic ground, something that works particularly well with liquid hard ground plates. After assessing the depth of the bitten intaglio by means of proof printing, the plate can be cleaned and etched further.
Printing from acrylic surfaces also makes it much easier to produce intaglio prints with a very bright background or even a pure paper white. Acrylics tend to have a much smoother surface than metal plates and as a consequence they will print with very little plate tone, or with none at all if sufficiently wiped (wiping from acrylics is faster and easier than wiping from metal). A well-wiped acrylic will print a white background as well, if not better than a highly polished metal plate that has been wiped at length with scrim, tissue and whiting.
Prints made from a combination of intaglio and collagraph techniques show a surprising coherence and can often be indistinguishable from ‘pure’ intaglio prints.
Keith Howard’s book The Contemporary Printmaker includes many more innovative variations in the use of collagraph elements in acrylic resist etching.