Constructed surfaces making expressive prints
In this workshop, you’ll unravel the magical world of collagraphy, a richly tactile, low-toxicity printmaking process that invites curiosity, courage, and creative play.
You’ll build your own textured printing plates using an exciting range of materials, including tape, sandpaper, string, embossed wrapping paper, lace, and thick glue. Drawing, scratching, and incising directly into your boards becomes part of the joy, giving you complete ownership of your marks and surfaces.
Guided by a nature-inspired theme, you’ll design and construct plates layered with texture, rhythm, and organic movement. Learning how each material responds to ink and pressure.
Collagraphy empowers you to create bold, multi-layered, vibrant prints using water-soluble inks, making it an ideal medium for exploration and discovery.
You’ll be encouraged to embrace the beautifully unpredictable nature of the process, trusting your instincts as your work evolves in unexpected and exciting directions. By the end of the workshop, you’ll leave with a deeper confidence in your creative voice and a renewed sense of what’s possible through print.
4-day Workshop
Monday 14 – Thursday 17 September 2026
Workshops run from 9.00 am – 4.00 pm
Morning tea and lunch are provided at your workshop.
Early bird booking: TBA
Full fee: TBA
Our first day together will be devoted to observation, mark discovery, and plate construction.
We’ll step into our surroundings, drawing inspiration from the rugged cliffs, ancient rock faces, and rolling ranges of the Grampians.
Through guided looking, sketching, rubbing, and intuitive mark-making, you’ll explore how the land translates into texture and line.
These impressions will inform the construction of your first collagraph plates, layered, weathered, and tactile, capturing the raw energy and rhythm of the landscape while setting a strong foundation for expressive printing in the days that follow.
Day two focuses on printing, reflection, and refinement.
Together, we will begin by inking and printing your first set of plates, closely observing how each texture, material, and mark responds under pressure.
Through test prints and gentle critique, you’ll identify what’s working, what can be pushed further, and where refinement is needed. With these insights, you’ll rework and resolve your plates before progressing to the creation of a master plate, a considered, cohesive surface that brings together your strongest elements and forms the foundation for your final expressive print.
This is where things really start to sing.
You’ll build and refine your final master plate while putting earlier plates back into play as experimental tools.
Expect plenty of testing, layering, and bold decision-making as we push how these surfaces print.
We’ll explore colour through chine collé, relief colour rolls, and hand-colouring. Stretching the possibilities of collagraphy and giving your prints richness, depth, and expressive punch.
Our final day together is all about resolution and reveal.
I’ll guide you through the final printing process, helping you refine inking, layering, and sequencing, so together we make the most of everything you’ve achieved across the week.
With focused printing sessions and considered finishing touches, you’ll be set up to succeed as you bring your resolved master plate to life, before we come together to showcase the work in the end-of-week exhibition, celebrating process, risk, and the power of beautiful prints.
- Mount board no bigger than A4
- Glues: glue stick, PVA glue, spray Glue
- 3x Somerset 300gsm Paper, 250gsm–300gsm
- Metal Ruler
- Cutting mat, self-healing
- Blade – cutting knife
- Scissors
- Spatula
- Lead pencil
- Coloured pencils
- Baking paper
Texture Materials
- String
- Wool
- corrugated cardboard
- fabric, lace, hessian
- sandpaper
- bubblewrap
- Modge Podge
- Gesso
Clean up and Safety
- Plastic Tablecloth [protection of tables = all week]
- Rags to clean up
- Baby wipes
- Orange Oil Spray
- Rubber gloves
- Spray and Wipe
Workshops run 9am – 4pm.
Morning tea and lunch are provided at your workshop.
Catering is supplied by the local bakery and will comprise of a salad roll, muffin or slice and piece of fruit daily. Please advise of your diet requirements upon booking. If you require specific dietary needs that cannot be catered for by the bakery please bring your own.
Book your own accommodation in Halls Gap or Pomonal. There are many styles and levels to choose from. Our website has a list of some of the accommodation options in Halls Gap and the places listed do offer a discount to Grampians Brushes participants.
Halls Gap has a wide range of evening meal options, from local take away, cafes and restaurants. There is a small supermarket with good supplies if you are choosing to self-cater. Local wineries have available award-winning wines for your enjoyment.
Join other students and tutors for evening meals, exhibitions, bushwalks and more. A full program of activities will be forwarded to enrolled participants in August. Partners, family and friends are welcome at all evening activities. As part of our opening night there is an artist market, and at the GrampianArts Market Place situated at the Halls Gap HUB. Senior Art Supplies will be selling specialist art supplies, Dairing selling speciality papers and Fibreworks.