Chine de Colle Technique

Chine de Colle is a technique which involves sandwiching coloured paper between the ink and the paper on which you’re printing.  My students have experimented with this technique much more than I have, so with their permission, I will be making reference to their prints.

Below, you can see Sophie’s design of her cat Milo.  Making his eyes yellow brings life and energy to the print. 

Karen also makes extensive use of the Chine de Colle design.  She had the brilliant idea of using cut outs from magazines to provide not only colour but texture to her prints.  In the print below, she has kept the lines of her linocut  very light and delicate; and used a cut out of flowers from a magazine to emphasise the body of the bird and imitate its feathers. 

Jennifer created a lovely series of butterfly cards using the chine de colle technique.  Here she has used origami paper for the wings, creating a beautiful image, with the patterned orange wings contrasting perfectly with the deep blue of the ink.

Ruthie, a 10 year old linocutter, has experimented very successfully with this technique.  She created a linocut of a sheep with a large ‘blank’ area in the middle.  She then used origami paper to produce a multi coloured herd of sheep,  which have a real impact when framed together.

Here’s how to do it.

1.  Use a draft print of the linocut to produce a template for the area you want to be covered with coloured paper.  In this case it is the body of the sheep.  Cut out the piece of paper to the shape required.  Patterned paper works better if your linocut is quite simple.  Plain coloured paper works well in drawing attention to a particular part of the linocut.

2.  Ink up your linocut. 

3.  Place the coloured paper front side down onto the inked up lino.  Being careful not to shift the paper, put a few dots of glue on the back.

4.  Put the paper you are printing onto over the linocut and transfer the print as usual, either using a press or by burnishing it.  Carefully life the paper off the linocut.

 If you are interested in doing a workshop with Three Bears Prints, have a look at :
http://www.threebearsprints.com/workshops