Claire has extensive experience with presses and traditional printmaking processes, so she offered a Collograph workshop during our time in Tolosa. Collography is the low-tech cousin of etching, with cardboard or matte board plates, leaves, feathers, string, sand and other materials that create printable textures. Typically we ink the plates with a roller, then rub off the excess ink with a rag so that we can print the ink remaining in cracks, hollows and scratches in the plates. Usually a thin residue of ink will persist on the flat areas of the plate, which results in a thin unifying grey throughout the print.
Garikoitz made arrangements to do the workshop in the ceramics studio upstairs in Tolosa’s Casa de Cultura – Kultur Etxea (Culture House) where a small press was available, and designed another beautiful, bilingual poster:
Claire only had one participant, Gurutze, an aspiring landscape and garden designer, but I assisted and the three of us did a lot of printing and had many good laughs.

Claire & Gurutze preparing plates.
Gurutze & Claire laughing & working on their plates.

A few plates and test prints.

Placing an inked plate on paper in the press with blankets.

International collography team; Garikoitz C. Murua Fierro photo.
Here are some short video clips from the workshop:
Gurutze printing #1 – onto paper.
Gurutze printing #2 – onto fabric.
Gurutze printing #3 – with leaves.
Claire inking plates.