About the Film

This collagraph documentary film is part of a series about printmaking commissioned by Northern Print. It follows artist Katherine Jones as she works through the intuitive, hands-on process of collagraph printmaking, a versatile, texture-based technique built from mountboard, glue and carborundum grit rather than carved or etched plates.

The film was one of seven I made for the Glossary Exhibition, each looking at a different artist’s approach to printmaking, screened alongside the artists’ work in 2014.

What Is Collagraph Printmaking?

Collagraph sits apart from most printmaking techniques because the plate itself is built rather than removed from. Where etching cuts into metal and woodcut carves away wood, a collagraph plate is constructed additively, layering materials onto a rigid surface such as mountboard until the desired texture and relief are achieved. Glue, carborundum grit, fabric, string and found materials can all become part of the plate, each holding ink differently depending on how coarse or smooth its surface is.

Once sealed and inked, the plate is run through a press much like any other intaglio print, but the results owe as much to chance and material behaviour as to deliberate mark-making. Because every plate is unique and often degrades slightly with each pull, no two prints from the same collagraph plate are ever quite identical. That unpredictability is part of what draws artists like Katherine to the technique, and it is something this collagraph documentary film tries to capture rather than smooth over.

Building a Plate from Texture

Katherine builds her plates up in layers, mountboard, glue, carborundum grit, testing how each material will hold ink and where texture will read strongest once printed. This collagraph documentary film follows that process closely, from the unpredictable magic of inking and wiping the plate through to à la poupée, a multi-colour inking method that lets several colours sit on a single plate at once.

Trial, error and instinct run through the whole process. Proofs matter here more than in many other techniques, since a collagraph plate often behaves differently with each pull, and Katherine’s decisions about colour are frequently made in the moment rather than planned in advance.

A Commission for the DLI Museum

Alongside the demonstration of technique, the film follows the evolution of a piece Katherine made for the DLI, the Durham Light Infantry Museum. Rather than depicting the medals themselves, the piece takes its starting point from their ribbons, translating something small, symbolic and easily overlooked into abstract form. It is a good example of how a commission brief can open up more interesting territory than a literal response would, letting the artist find her own way into the subject rather than illustrating it directly.

Watching that decision take shape across the film, from source material to finished print, says as much about how commissions work for an artist as it does about collagraph as a technique.

My Practice and the Texture of Process

Films like this one sit close to why I keep making work about artists at all. I am less interested in a tidy explanation of technique than in watching someone work through genuine uncertainty, the moment a print comes off the plate looking nothing like expected, and a decision has to be made about whether that is a failure or the actual point.

There is a real overlap between collagraph and documentary filmmaking as ways of working. Neither can be entirely planned in advance. You build the conditions for something to happen, a plate, a shoot, a conversation, and then you have to stay attentive enough to recognise the useful accident when it turns up. Editing has more in common with pulling a proof than people sometimes assume: you are reading what is actually there rather than what you intended, and adjusting accordingly.

Filming Katherine, and the wider Glossary series alongside her, gave me a chance to sit with that idea across several different disciplines, from Julian Meredith’s woodblocks to Stephen Chambers’ potato prints. Each artist handled uncertainty differently, and part of my job was simply to notice how.

Filming Katherine Jones

As with the rest of the Glossary series, I wanted the camera to stay close to the work rather than narrate over it. Katherine’s process is precise but also genuinely improvisational, and this collagraph documentary film tries to hold both of those things at once, the careful build-up of the plate and the more spontaneous decisions that happen once ink is involved.

About Northern Print and the Glossary Exhibition

Northern Print is a leading printmaking studio and gallery based in Newcastle, supporting artists and audiences through exhibitions, studio access and education. The Glossary exhibition brought together some of the best in contemporary printmaking, with each artist’s work accompanied by a specially commissioned film. This collagraph documentary film sits alongside six other Glossary films exploring different printmaking techniques, from woodcut to monotype. You can find out more about their work at northernprint.org.uk.