Adding Watercolor to Collagraph Prints

This is a post from Belinda Del Pesco’s Art Blog Belinda Del Pesco.

Can You add Watercolor to Collagraph Prints?

Yes, you can, as long as the ink you used to print your collagraph dries permanent, and the paper you printed it on can handle wet media. (Here’s a post that covers the caveats of wet media on ink and printmaking papers.) (You can test a small swatch of one of your prints.)

When you print a collagraph intaglio style, you can control the amount of ink covering your paper. Less ink equals more room for watercolors.

In the collagraph print in this post, you’ll see that ink is left along the curbs and crevices of the design – but most is wiped away to leave the paper clear for some watercolor fun after the ink dries.

Building a Collagraph Plate

This collagraph plate was made with mat board and construction paper. You can get mat board online, or ask your local frame shop if you can collect a handful of cut outs from their recycling bin.

The construction paper is kid-grade. If you have kids, or grandkids, you can sneak into their art supplies and “borrow” some colored construction paper.

Give Your Old Prints New Life with Watercolors

If you’ve pulled prints and found them a little short of your expectations, pull them out for a little watercolor fun.

And if you know the paper you printed on can’t handle wet media, or your inks are water-soluble even after they dry, apply colored pencil to your collagraph print (

If you didn’t like your old, stuffed in a cupboard prints much, this is an especially freeing exercise, because you have nothing to lose if the additional media misses the mark.

Tell yourself to have fun, and just experiment. Listen to an audiobook (I’m listening to this one right now), or a podcast (this is a printmaking podcast), or some music and have at it!

Thanks for stopping by and I’ll see you in the next post!

Belinda

P.S. On the subject of printmaking inspiration, this is my favorite printmaking magazine on the planet – Pressing Matters.

Collagraph Print Supplies

Art Quote

One day work is hard, and another day it is easy; but if I had waited for inspiration I am afraid I should have done nothing. The miner does not sit at the top of the shaft waiting for the coal to come bubbling up to the surface. One must go deep down, and work out every vein carefully.

Arthur Sullivan

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