Collagraph part II - using low relief dense foam

Shoreline

2007
Collagraph

In my previous post I showed a couple of prints of mine that combined various low relief materials to produce a print on paper. One of the materials that was used was low relief pieces of scratch foam printing plate. 

This material has the ability to embed other shapes into it's surface. It can be used to great effect for adding interesting details to a collagraph print.

I pressed medium grit sandpaper into the foam surface to give this a grainy texture. I followed this by stabbing the foam with a pen tip to give me slightly larger depressions. For some crack lines I drew across with the point of a bamboo skewer.
The objective here was to create a pocky hard rock surface which is very common to the region where I live. 
The mission with this collagraph was to convey a sense of the landscape and elements of Northern Ontario...lots of water with an abundance of Cambrian Shield rock interspersed with boreal forests.

I cut and glued down the foam pieces onto a thick paperboard substrate. Then using an xacto blade I cut away and shaped the material. Using a ballpoint pen tip I was able to press into the foam and create pockets for darker areas to be made when the ink would be applied.

I was able to coat the foam and rest of the materials on the plate using shellac. Once it was dry then thinned etching ink was applied to the plate and it was wiped back and printed.

This is a magnified detail from a section of a test print from another study (5 colour relief print) showing how the texture came about from the styrofoam.