I have collaborated with Barbara Rae for the best part of 5 decades making etchings and carborundum prints.

Her experience understanding and mastery of the carborundum technique allow her to combine strong compositional control with layered abstract expressionist marks and textures to create rich beautiful prints which capture the sense of history, time and place.

The medium used to create the print is Carborundum on a Perspex matrix plate, in this instance 3 separate plates were used to make the image.

Carborundum is a silicon carbide powder and when it’s mixed with an Acrylic medium can successfully be used like a paint to be applied in varying textural brushstrokes to make a rich variety of expressive marks, which hold the printing Inks.
Using the Intaglio/etching technique, the 3 plates are inked and wiped independently using a different combination of colours on each plate and then printed one after the other on the same sheet of paper to make the completed print.

Although the process can be very time consuming the resulting prints are really quite unique and beautiful, displaying a very rich painterly quality

Ian McNicol – Collaborative Printer