Carborundum printing is an accessible, direct, and highly expressive printmaking technique. In this article, I will look at its development, its unique properties, and how you can incorporate it into your practice. If you want a printmaking process that is inherently very painterly and bypasses a good deal of process in creating the plate, then carborundum printing might be for you.
Introduction to Carborundum Printing
What is Carborundum Printing?
If you search for information online relating to the history of the invention of carborundum printing you find diverse names, dates, and definitions. It turns out there are two important iterations, the first of which I was unaware of. The commercially manufactured abrasive grit carborundum would have been a familiar material in printmaking workshops, used in the graining and polishing of lithographic stones. In one such workshop, a New Deal federally funded print workshop in Philadelphia, an artist called Dox Thrash experimented. He came up with the idea of graining a metal intaglio plate with carborundum grit, creating a texture all over the plate that would hold ink.
He then scraped and polished the plate to create lighter tones in the manner of mezzotint, so a quick version of a mezzotint. This was an ingenious innovation for a very particular setting. As part of America’s New Deal, the Federal Art Project was established in 1935 to create employment for artists during the Great Depression. Workshops were set up across the USA and there was an expectation of producing, to targets, prints for sale at affordable prices. The carborundum mezzotints were not only less costly to produce than a traditional mezzotint, but the smudgy, atmospheric mood fitted the social realist style of art at the time.
Coarse Carborundum mixed to a paste with Jackson’s Acrylic Gel Medium
Carborundum Printing as we know it today though was invented by another fine printmaker, Henri Goetz in the 1960s. That is, by combining various grades of carborundum grit with a varnish to bind it into a paintable medium which was then applied to printing plates. When the plates were inked in the intaglio manner, the carborundum areas held on to the ink and printed both with richness and with structure. A science student turned artist working in Paris, Goetz established a fine print studio and, always experimenting, created this innovation and shared it widely in his 1968 treatise ‘La Gravure au Carborundum’. In the decade preceding, abstract expressionism had become mainstream in the USA, and an unimpeded expressive printmaking form was enthusiastically adopted by many artists.
The Intrinsic Properties and Appeal of Carborundum Printing
Carborundum printing has a directness, immediacy, and a freedom from process that will appeal to those of you who get a bit bogged down with the planning and technical steps other forms of printmaking require. That said, carborundum can be combined with other print techniques to expand the dimensions of mark-making. Carborundum can be added to an etched or aquatinted plate, combined with drypoint, or form part of the surface texture of a collagraph.
A stiff brush is perfect for painting on the carborundum gel mix
The expressive potential is at its height when carborundum is combined with a binder, for example, an acrylic medium, and painted on in gestural brushstrokes. The ink will sit within the lines of the brushstrokes, enabling you to create a great deal of texture and depth on the plate. This sculptural element will then emboss into the printing paper resulting in work with high-impact surface detail. You can experiment with many ways of applying carborundum, it encourages a direct engagement with the materials.
Two plate carborundum print with Akua Intaglio Inks on Stonehenge Fine Art paper
How Can We Apply Carborundum?
Goetz originally experimented with various varnishes for adhering the carborundum to the plate and today we have more options still with the introduction of water-based acrylic mediums and glues. This decision will directly influence the resulting marks you can make and the image you create. It also requires a bit of experimentation to ensure the carborundum is stuck sufficiently to withstand printing with the plate material you have chosen, and the inks you use.
Your plate can be metal, plastic, cardboard or Environmount, even wood. You will want to think about whether you want to be able to wipe the plate free of all plate tone, and how you might make other marks on the plate, or even carve into the carborundum mixture, which you can do if you make a paste of carborundum and plaster, or gesso paste. Acrylic mediums work very well as a base to mix in different grades of grit and a strong waterproof PVA is perfect if you want to sprinkle or ‘pounce’ the grit over the top.
There is also a ready-mixed carborundum paste made by Akua which can be screen printed through a 43T(110) mesh silk screen using a variety of stencil types, as well as painted directly onto the plate.
Gestural painting on Environmount mount board
Varying Marks and Tones
Once your carborundum is on the plate you have more options for working into it or onto it. One option is to draw into it wet or scrape it away once dry. To work back from the darkest to lighter tones you can begin to paint over it with more diluted mixes of grit and binder or just the binder itself. This will have the effect of filling in some of the ink-holding crevices, and if you completely fill them in with a thicker layer of binder you can get all the way back to white.
Below you can see some different methods of applying carborundum on a Jackson’s Transparent Printing Plate and the variation in the grit sizes.
Top left: Akua Carborundum Gel screen printed through a hand-cut paper stencil.
Top centre: Coarse carborundum grit mixed with Jackson’s Acrylic Medium and painted on.
Top right: A square of Akua Carborundum Gel screen printed on, then drawn into whilst wet and painted over with wood glue to fill in the gaps and print white.
Bottom left: Fine carborundum sprinkled (pounced) through some tarlatan onto waterproof PVA, then more PVA dribbled over.
Bottom centre: A block of waterproof PVA is painted on then fine carborundum is hand sprinkled lightly over in a drifting manner.
Bottom right: Medium grit mixed with Jackson’s Acrylic Medium and painted on with a stiff brush.
Below is the plate printed with Akua Intaglio Black with added extender of about 40%. Where the binder/glue has been painted over the fine grit, it has filled in all the crevices and the ink wipes clean away.
Gestural Mark-Making
The plates for the red and yellow abstract are shown here. The yellow plate was a piece of Environmount, onto which was applied a paste of Acrylic Medium and medium carborundum grit, painted on with a stiff bristle brush to emphasise the brush marks. The Environmount has a shiny surface that wipes easily for little plate tone.
A coarse carb combined with acrylic medium and brushed on in a gestural manner with a stiff brush.
The red plate was made by dripping across strong waterproof PVA straight from the nozzle and then sprinkling fine grit all over before tapping off excess. Once dry the remaining carborundum can be brushed away with a soft brush. The loose grit can be put back in the container for future use. You can see how easy it is to achieve dynamic mark-making.
Dribbling waterproof PVA on to a Jackson’s Transparent Printing Plate
Wood glue or waterproof PVA dribbled across plate in an ‘action painting manner with fine carborundum ‘pounced’ over.
Inking and Printing a Textured Plate
Depending on the surface you have created, finding workarounds for getting the ink on and then off the plate is up to you. Generally speaking, a loose ink will be easier. You can use plate oil to dilute the ink or start with a loose-bodied ink like the Akua Intaglio range. Given that you might end up with a heavy ink deposit in the carborundum areas, you can add a larger amount of extender than you would usually. For the yellow plate, I applied ink with a rectangular piece of mount card, scraped off as much of the excess as I could and then wiped with tarlatan followed by a newsprint wipe. For the red plate, to get the ink all in and around the raised marks, a stiff bristle brush was needed. The plate was wiped in the same way.
This next sunflower plate is a piece of standard mount board, so there is some plate tone remaining after wiping. I have used a combination of acrylic gel and carborundum paste that I have painted on and then created little depressions in. Then PVA glue was painted on with fine carborundum lightly sprinkled over.
To create a print with soft blended colours you can ink up ‘a la poupee’, which roughly translates as ‘with the doll’, the doll being a little bundle of cloth with which you can apply different colours in a targeted manner on the same plate. Alternatively, and I found this worked best here, the ink was applied with stiff bristle brushes to get it pushed down into the crevices. Remember your ink is quite loose and paint-like in consistency, so brush application works fine. Wiping then must be more controlled, so with small bundles of scrim.
Single plate with multiple colours inked ‘a la poupee’
Good even dampening of the paper is required and a strong but mouldable sheet. Here I have used Somerset Textured paper and Stonehenge, both cotton papers of 250 gsm. Fabriano Unica and Hahnemühle are also good choices, and the greater the depths of your carborundum impasto the heavier the sheets you can use.
Carborundum applied to a transparent printing plate by both ‘pouncing’ and painting
When Things Don’t Quite Go to Plan
Testing all the chosen elements of your print is necessary, just as with other print forms. Your choice of inks, surface material, and binder are all variables that affect each other. As mentioned earlier, a strong waterproof PVA can form a good binder for carborundum. For the next print, I used a Jackson’s Transparent Printing Plate and diluted the PVA to paint with a bit more of a wash effect for wet sand. Fine carborundum was sprinkled over in a drift-like manner. However, when cleaning off the Akua Intaglio black with soapy water, some of the thinner washes of PVA lifted off the plate and were lost.
Carborundum can be ‘pounced’ through layers of tarlatan
The figures were painted on with Akua Carborundum Gel and then undiluted waterproof PVA and fine carborundum powder over the top. These remained well adhered to the plate and noted for next time. It may be that a traditional oil-based ink might be better suited for this combination of plate and binder. The two were then given highlights with Jackson’s Acrylic Medium painted on containing no carborundum.
Two plate carborundum print with Akua Intaglio Inks on Stonehenge Fine Art paper
The blue plate was Environmount with an extremely dilute carborundum to acrylic medium paste brushed across.
To conclude there are no better words than those of Joan Miro. He wrote to Henri Goetz in 1967 expressing his thoughts on the carborundum printing process – “The results are exciting and very beautiful. The artist can express himself with more richness and freedom, it is therefore a beautiful material, and gives a greater power to the line…” Most materials used in this article can be found on our website, except for the waterproof PVA/wood glue. You will need a hardware store or builders’ merchant for that.
Further Reading
Sláma Press Printmaking Techniques
Setting Up the Fome Etching Press
Introduction to Mezzotint Printmaking
Shop Printmaking on jacksonsart.com
Wonderful article. Can’t wait to try out these
painterly techniques.
Great to hear Sarah!