I am Hugh Dunford Wood, aged just 70, and I have been an artist/designer all my working life. I paint landscapes & portraits, I sculpt in strap steel and sometimes in neon; I throw pots and plates for my own use and I do a bit of graphic work such as hand drawn invitations and letterheads; I paint murals, engrave glass, and cut Lino blocks to print. I have always run a design practice alongside my art work. It is more sociable that way and keeps me sane. I maintain a steady practice of drawing in a sketchbook which feeds my appetites and my imagination.
Describe your printmaking process.
I have two printing practices, both using Lino. One is the design and making of printed linens, for furnishings and for cushions; the other is making small linocuts from observation or from the imagination that I print onto a variety of papers and combine to make collaged linocuts, or Collinos. These are one offs and are exhibited and sold through galleries and art fairs. Oh I also edition landscape prints, most recently a couple from a painting trip last year to the Saxon Villages of Transylvania, in Roumania.
How and where did you learn to print?
I
was apprenticed to Peggy Angus in the 1970s, and she taught me much of what the
Ruskin School of Art did not. The Ruskin gave me the eye and a hand to
draw and to paint with. Peggy lived in Camden Studios, and in Barra, and
also near Charleston in Sussex she had a small isolated shepherds cottage under
the Downs that she first rented with Eric Ravilious in about 1937. Her son died
of epilepsy aged 22, and sent her young men of his age to help her out. I
was the second of three.
Why printmaking?
I enjoy its definition, its directness and its simplicity. I often print the small Lino blocks with the back of a spoon, and the very large wallpaper blocks by climbing on the print table and stomping out a print.
Where do you work?
I
have been fortunate to always have a dedicated studio attached to my home.
We have just moved back to Bridport in West Dorset and the whole of the
ground floor of the house is my domain.
Describe a typical day in your studio.
If I have a commission on the books I just get on with it, otherwise I play with ideas that have arisen as I lie excitedly awake in the early hours. I sleep less now, but my dreams are richer for that.
How long have you been printmaking?
For about 50 years, and more than ever in the last 15.
What inspires you?
The natural world is indefatigable in its giving. So I draw all the time. That is my foundation, my way or relating to the world. I love music and other people, especially younger generations who give me so many ideas. I started teaching about 10 years ago, having always maintained that I was too busy and selfish to bother. I get enormous pleasure from passing on the skills I have been taught, and encouraging confidence in others.
What is your favourite printmaking product?
Linoleum, paper and ink.
What have you made that you are most proud of?
Being one of the three founders of the Oxford Art Week in the early 1980s, which has led to a nationwide, and international, celebration of Open Studios. Art and making are everyone’s birthright.
Where can we see your work? Where do you sell?
I have work in the V&A, the Devon Guild of Craftsmen, and various galleries.
What will we be seeing from you next?
New sculpture in Parlour, Kensal; a mural in the Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis; some new cushion designs and also a couple of fresh wallpapers before the year is out. I am also giving a Weekend Wallpaper Making Workshop soon and another Travelling Sketchbook Weekend if you are lucky enough to get a place on either.
Do you have any advice for other printmakers and creatives?
Neither hide nor hoard your talents, but share them, and accrue to them by enquiry with other artists and makers. Celebrate life and remember that the world is full of hosts – there are just not enough guests. So travel, overland, with your sketchbook and not with a camera.
We took our pop up shop to Printfest in Ulverston once again this year. Printfest is an annual celebration of print that runs during the first weekend of May in Ulverston, Cumbria. There are 49 printmakers who exhibit there showing a wide range of techniques. It is lovely being able to meet and talk through the prints with the artists. It is even more lovely for us as lots of our customers visit Printfest so it is really great to meet them face to face.
Laura Boswell was exhibiting there. Above is Dry Stone Wall a linocut by Laura. Laura is teaching a One Week Immersion into Authentic Japanese Watercolour Woodblock at our studio – Mon 24th – Fri 28th Aug 2020 You can see more of Laura’s work on her website.
A Flight of Swallows II by Hester Cox. We also have Hester Cox coming next month to teach collagraph printmaking. Her weekend course is full but we do have a couple of spaces remaining on the Monday 17th and Tuesday 18th June. More of Hester’s work can be viewed here.
Turning Tides by Ian Phillips. Ian Phillips was there showing his linocut prints – all hand burnished and most of them huge! Ian is teaching two, two day courses for us in November. Reduction lino on Saturday 16th and Sunday 17th November and a new course for us Multi Block Lino on Monday 18th and Tuesday 19th November. See more of Ian’s work here.
Included in the 49 exhibiting printmakers are two invited artists. These artists are Printmaker of the Year and Printmaker’s Printmaker. The Printmaker of the year is chosen by Printfest, the Printmaker’s Printmaker is chosen the previous year by the exhibiting Printmakers. Both of the artists get to present an artist’s talk on the preceding Thursday evening. This year The Printmaker of the Year was Sadie Tierney and Printmaker’s Printmaker was Flora McLachlan
Sadie’s talk
Utpåturaldrisur (Wastwater Screes) by Sadie Tierney
Flora’s talk
Printfest 2020 in full flow.
David Peduzzi a regular visitor to our studio was also there. His website can be viewed here.
We also gave an award this year. It was really daunting to cchoose a printmaker from such a cohort of amazing artists. We chose Helen Murgatroyd who was also chosen as the Printmaker’s Printmaker so we look forward to seeing her at Printfest in 2020!
Cyanotype is an early photographic process that uses two solutions (Potassium Ferricyanide and Ferric Ammonium Citrate) to create an image or ‘blueprint’. It was introduced by John Herschel in 1842 as a way to copy notes but was brought to the photographic world by Anna Atkins the following decade through her photograms of algae, seaweed, feathers and ferns.
We are using a Cyanotype Kit to create cyanotypes onto fabric and paper. As per the instructions on the kit, fill both containers with water and shake until they are fully dissolved. For best results, do this 24 hours before using. Mix the two solutions from the Cyanotype Kit together in equal proportions. Only mix what you need at a time (the sensitiser is only stable for 2-4 hours). For one piece of fabric we are using 5ml of each solution.
Paint the mixed solution onto your paper or fabric. Do this in subdued lighting. We are using a cardboard box to block out some of the light. We have pinned a piece of fabric to a frame to help the solution spread evenly and to help it dry. Dry the paper or fabric in complete darkness.
You can use paper stencils to block the light. Any objects used to block the light will appear white in the final design.
You can also use screen film and an opaque film marker to draw your design.
Use a combination of stencils, drawn designs and objects such as fabric to create a unique design. You could also use larger objects such as scissors, plants or even whole bodies!
If you are using sunlight to expose your cyanotype, you will need to place your objects on top of the painted paper or fabric. Quickly retrieve the paper or fabric from the dark and place your design on top. If your design is flat, cover with a piece of perspex or uncoated glass to hold the design still. We used bulldog clips to hold our sandwich together onto a board.
Watch as the cyanotype turns from a bronze or green colour to dark blue.
When it has turned blue, remove the plastic objects on top and quickly rinse in cold water. The unexposed area should turn white.
Leave the paper or fabric in a tray of cold water for five minutes.
If using an exposure unit, the light source will be from below. In this case, you will need to lay the design down first, making sure everything is laid down backwards. Lay the treated paper or fabric on top of the design, painted side down before exposing. Exposure times will vary depending on the unit you are using.
As before, quickly remove the fabric or paper and rinse under cold water.
Once again, leave in a tray of cold water for five minutes.
For this project you will need: – Cyanotype Kit – Paper (cartridge paper, watercolour paper, handmade paper etc.) – Fabric (thin, white cotton such as Prima works well) – Paintbrush – Pot to mix solutions into – Measuring cup or spoons – Dark place to dry painted paper and fabrics – Frame and pins to stretch fabric – Screen Film – Opaque Film Markers – Paper stencils – Objects to use as masks – Light source such as the sun or an exposure unit – Sheet of perspex or uncoated glass to hold papers down – Tray for soaking
I was born in 1964 and brought up in Liverpool. I have BFA and MA degrees in Fine Art from Oxford University, a Postgraduate Diploma in Printmaking from Central School of Art, London, and in 2018 was elected an Honorary Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford University, for ‘distinction in the world of art’. I exhibit my wood engravings, linocuts and printed collages widely, have won 40 national and international awards (including a Rome Scholarship in Printmaking; a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award, USA; and an Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Award, Montreal, Canada) and have works in public and private collections worldwide. The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, have each purchased significant holdings of my works. Over 30 solo shows include two major museum retrospectives at the Ashmolean (1998) and the Whitworth (2008) respectively: each toured UK museums for two years. I had an earlier retrospective at Moscow’s Ex Libris Museum, Russia (1995); and solo exhibitions at the Holburne Museum, Bath (2017) and Gainsborough’s House Museum, Suffolk (2018). I am author of four printmaking and drawing books and was editor of Printmaking Today magazine from 1998-2013. I am only the third wood engraver ever elected to membership of the Royal Academy of Arts (RA) in its 250-year history. I live and work in London.
Last year, I was approached by Westmorland and Parker Harris to sit on the selection panel for a new open art prize: the Westmorland Landscape Prize. The Prize, which is open to all UK-based artists working in any media, aims to stimulate thinking and debate about the way in which we exist alongside, as part of, or sometimes in spite of our landscape. The deadline for submissions in on 17 June and artists will be notified of the results on 28 June: between these two dates, myself and my fellow panellists – Cherie Frederico, Editor of Aesthetica Magazine, and Hazel Stone, Arts Development Manager at Forestry England – will be judging the artwork submitted…
Describe your printmaking process.
I make wood engravings, linocuts, lithographs, monotypes and mixed-media printed collages. I also occasionally make digital prints that are printed either as lithographs or as laser-cuts. My primary printmaking process is, however, wood engraving on end-grain, polished boxwood blocks using fine tools (like copper engravers’ tools) which come to very sharp points so as to cut really clean, crisp lines and marks into the blocks of wood. Boxwood is extremely slow growing so the wood is very hard, but it cuts very easily and cleanly and doesn’t wear out with the pressure of repeated printings. I start out making drawings in small A6-size sketchbooks and I also take photographs for reference. I draw up a chosen image onto a wood block and engrave it with a range of different tools – each of which has a slightly different shape or size of cutting tip so I can make broader or finer marks and lines and marks of assorted different shapes and sizes. When the engraving is complete, I ink up the surface (the engraved marks print as the white of the paper – it is the uncut parts of the block which are inked and printed) and print the block onto fine printing paper using my cast-iron Albion relief printing press which was made in 1859 and is still printing perfectly today.
How and where did you learn to print?
I was taught a wide range of printmaking techniques as part of my Fine Art degree at Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University and I developed them further at Central School of Art and Design in London. But printmaking is an ongoing process of learning so I feel I learn something new about it with every new print I make.
Why printmaking?
When I was a child (age six months until 18 years) I spent about 5 years of my life over different periods of weeks and months in hospital, having a lot of surgical procedures to try to fix a developmental abnormality of one of my hips. I spent a lot of that time drawing anything and everything that I could see from my hospital bed: other patients, bowls of fruit, light bulbs, my own hands and feet etc etc. The work was, of necessity, in small sketchbooks and single sheets of paper and was mostly in pencil or biro. Because I had a lot of time to occupy, my drawings got more and more intense and detailed – and were all in black/grey on white paper. When I started at art school, I knew virtually nothing about printmaking but had a portfolio of very detailed pencil and pen drawings! A tutor in the printmaking department introduced me to wood engraving thinking that it would give me a medium in which I could continue to lavish lots of time and attention to detail but it would have several advantages, long term, over a specialism in drawing in more conventional media, namely:
a) The different tools facilitate the making of a much broader and more interesting range of intricate marks than does a pencil or pen nib.
b) If you ink up a wood engraving block in black ink, without cutting any image, when you print it you will get a solid black shape. So, unlike working with pen on paper, an engraving starts from an idea of an image in darkness being brought out into the light, rather than applying a dark mark to white paper. Everything you engrave on the block will print as the white parts of the image and everything you leave uncut produces the black or coloured areas. As my drawings tended to have an interest in strong contrasts of light and dark – with a lot of darkness in them, wood engraving offered a more logical way to work as the ‘darkness’ is already provided with the uncut block and there is something very beautiful and very thrilling about creating an image in light out of that darkness.
c) Because you can print an edition from a wood block, the medium offered me the potential to continue to spend a lot of hours working on an image in huge detail and intensity, but, ultimately, I’d be able to print an edition from the block and thus have the potential to sell each print at an affordable price for the buyer, relative to the time I’d spent working on it, whereas, if I continued to specialise in very detailed one-off drawings – each drawing could become impossibly expensive to the potential buyer if I charged for, say, 6 weeks of my time spent making it. With an editioned print, that 6 weeks of time gets spread over each print in the edition so that each print is a much more affordable proposition in selling terms.
These same factors apply to my linocutting and other print techniques. My collages, however, arose out of a need and desire to work through ideas more swiftly than is possible with engravings – and to experiment with different surfaces, materials, colours, and to create compositions that were more invented and fantastical than the more specific ‘real place’ subjects of my engravings.
Where do you work?
I work in my home/studios in Hackney, East London. I have one studio where I make my engravings and another in which I print them.
Describe a typical day in your studio.
There isn’t really a ‘typical day’ in my studio. Most days will usually involve correspondence – emails and admin of various sorts that sometimes takes over the day entirely. On engraving days, I like to spend whole days working on a block with as few distractions as possible – other than Radio 4 keeping me company in the background. Printing days are different again as they’re in a different studio in my house and I like to print to music with a decent beat – ‘I am Kloot’ or David Bowie for instance – as it helps to print to the rhythm of music.
How long have you been printmaking?
For 35 years – since first getting hooked on printmaking at art school in 1984.
What inspires you?
My ongoing theme since schooldays has been ‘metamorphosis’ in one form or another. I took a Latin A level and was very into Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’ which certainly influenced my art and there are any number of great artists who have made images of Ovid’s subject matter – all of which I was very keen on when I was at school and university. My subject matter then tended to be portraits of my friends that were subjected to metamorphoses in various ways. After a postgrad. course, following my degree, I got a Rome Scholarship in Printmaking which enabled me to spend a year living and working at the British School in Rome. There I got very interested in Italian architecture – partly because of the theatricality of it and the way Italian light creates fantastic dramatic shadows and much stronger tonal contrasts than English light. That Italian light is great for engraving! I also was fascinated by the layers and centuries of history in Italian architecture – from Etruscan tombs through to Roman remains, mediaeval colonnades, High Renaissance and Baroque church spires and modern apartments – all co-existing in the same contemporary time frame. It was a kind of compressed metamorphosis all in plain sight. I also got very interested in the aspirational qualities of tower-building in ancient Rome and medieval Italy – and that sparked an ongoing interest in the idea of the Tower of Babel from the bible and what that story expresses about human aspirations and desires. These all remain ongoing concerns in my work.
Many other artists’ works have influenced me. The key ones are (early Renaissance Flemish/Dutch): Bosch, Bruegel, Van Eyck, Memling. Early Renaissance Italian: Giotto, Piero della Francesca, Fra Angelico. High Renaissance: Da Vinci, Bellini. French Impressionist: Monet (in particular the changing images of Rouen cathedral in different lights). Italian 18th century architect/engraver: Piranesi. 20th century wood engravers: Edward Wadsworth, Gertrude Hermes, Paul Nash and many others.
There is also much autobiographical content in my work in the sense that the scale and intensity of my work has been fashioned to a large extent by my walking disability and the time spent in hospital. The idea of metamorphosis I suspect stems from a teenage psychological desire to be able to change myself and to cure my physical abnormality. That wasn’t possible of course, and is not something I’ve ever lost sleep over – it’s not something that I worry about, but I guess that, deep down, the metamorphosing ideas do stem from a sense of wanting to take flight from my own physical limitations and to explore other worlds of the imagination. The flights of fantasy, even if not directed at self-portraiture in metamorphosing terms, are something I’ve always felt very moved by so, I guess, in that sense, it is autobiographical. The places I make engravings of are always places I’ve been to as I have to feel I have some sense of intimacy with a place before I feel comfortable about depicting it. In earlier works, the portraits I made were always of friends or family.
What is your favourite printmaking product?
I love the boxwood blocks that I engrave – especially the round ones that still have the bark of the tree attached. It’s a wonderful feeling to work on this organic product. I also love my engraving tools – most of which I have bought second-hand. It’s very special to work with equipment that has been loved and cared for by other practitioners over many decades. The same applies to my printing press to which I’m also strongly attached!
What have you made that you are most proud of?
I have different favourite pieces at different times because you always hope that, with every piece you make, you want the one you’re working on to be the best thing you have ever made! So it’s hard to pin it down to just one work. But I did make a series of five Babel Tower printed collages in 2005 which were bought by the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester for its permanent collection. I am still very proud of those as they were particularly ambitious in scale and concept and took a circular format which has influenced the more recent work I’m making now.
Where can we see your work? Where do you sell?
I show with Long & Ryle Gallery, Pimlico, London www.longandryle.com which is showing my work at the London Original Print Fair at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, from 25-28 April 2019. I am also a selector for this year’s RA Summer Exhibition in which I’ll also be showing 6 of my own latest works (June – August 2019) www.royalacademy.org.uk. You can also see virtually everything I’ve ever made on my new website: www.annedesmet.com
What will we be seeing from you next?
In 2016, the RA published a facsimile sketchbook entitled ‘Anne Desmet – An Italian Journey’. This comprised over 120 pages of my Italian drawings from 4 sketchbooks spanning some 25 years reproduced at actual size (a little smaller than A6). This autumn the RA will publish a follow-up book of my drawings of the Greek Islands from 1984, 1985 and 2018. The book will be called ‘Anne Desmet – A Greek Journey’ and will be launched with a small exhibition of Greece-inspired collages later this year. I am also curating a significant exhibition for the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Entitled ’Scene through Wood – A Century of Wood Engraving’, it will show some 100 fine engravings from c.1920 – 2020 from the Ashmolean and private collections. It will open on 27th March 2020 until July 2020 and will include a selection of my own works as well as engravings by many other artists.
As I mentioned earlier, I will also be sitting on the selection panel for the inaugural Westmorland Landscape Prize, and am hoping to see a good range of really ambitious prints entered. Make sure to get your entry in by 17 June! Enter now: landscape.artopps.co.uk
Do you have any advice for other printmakers and creatives?
When I was at art school, printmaking – and especially wood engraving – was considered highly unfashionable and not an area of art that any self-respecting artist should have any interest in. I had great support there from the printmaking tutors but regular criticism from tutors who weren’t involved with printmaking and who spent much time criticising my practice and encouraging me to make large-scale paintings instead. In the end, whilst weighing up whether or not any criticism you may get is justified, I do think you ultimately need to work at whatever feels truest to you, whether or not it’s ‘fashionable’ or ’trendy’. It’s impossible, really, to predict what will be the next ‘in’ thing in the art world so there’s not much point in trying to second-guess it. All you can do is make work that comes from your heart and that you believe in. Hopefully, in either the short or the long run, that integrity in what you make will be appreciated by a discerning audience so, stick with it and don’t be downhearted if the sphere of art you have chosen to work in attracts criticism or even disinterest – working as an artist is a long game and you have to enjoy making what you make and believe in it or your life and career may not feel fulfilling. I feel very lucky to have had a long (ongoing) career doing something I truly love and I am delighted that, over the years, my work has built up a strong audience.
Hello! I’m Kaylene. I’m an illustrator, printmaker and teacher.I’m originally from Canada but I now live and work in South East London with my Mr, two kids and two cats. I make quirky screenprints and linocuts – usually with a planty theme of some sort. I began Plant Prints for Peace after the birth of my first daughter in 2016. I felt like there was a lot of not-so-great stuff going on that year and wanted to try and make a difference doing something I love. 10% of sales from PPFP goes towards a wonderful charity called Peace Direct (https://www.peacedirect.org/) who work in conflict areas around the world to build lasting peace. I’ve always loved plants, though I’m not amazing at looking after them, and was really drawn to greenery as subject matter.
Describe your printmaking process.
I make screen prints at the wonderful Sonsoles Print Studio in Peckham.I’ll draw a design by hand and then digitise the drawings and have them made into film positives.I’ll then expose screens and print each colour layer – finishing with my love / nemesis – the thin black line – I never leave myself much of a margin for error when screen printing so I have to drink lots of coffee before I get started. I make my linocuts at home in my little studio / spare room.I’ll usually draw straight onto a block before I cut using my trusty Pfeil tools. Sometimes I’ll hand burnish prints but usually I use my Woodzilla press. Most of the lino prints I’m making now are reduction prints – I like the danger of no going back and the loosening of my drawing style when printing with lino.
How and where did you learn to print?
I learned to screen print and linocut at school and then university many moons ago. I came back to screen printing after a one day course with Peckham Print Studio (now Make-Ready https://make-ready.co/) and got properly obsessed. I got stuck back into linocut when my second daughter was born last year and I was finding it tricky to get to the screen printing studio. There’s been a lot of trial and error and a lot of checking out the work of other printmakers in books and on Instagram etc. for tips and tricks.
Why printmaking?
There’s something magic about printmaking. I know because when I teach workshops with adults or the children I work with at school, there is always an audible ‘woooowwwww’ when the print is revealed. Prints are so visceral and tactile. I feel like every one is an original in its own way – different pressure, different gradients, little marks – in mine anyway – I’m pretty relaxed about perfection! The process of printmaking is satisfying too – there’s a lot of problem-solving which I love.
Where do you work?
I do most of my drawing and prep work and all of my linocuts in my studio at home in Penge. It also serves as a spare bed but is mostly a land of things and images I love. And mess. Definitely mess.
Describe a typical day in your studio.
It’s pretty rare that I get a whole day in the studio. Printing has to fit between my teaching work, running around after two little ones and various other bits of adulting. I make pretty good use of the hours between 7-11 most nights, carving blocks, printing layers or drawing new designs. Most of my post office runs to send prints out happen on a Monday when I’m home with the littles so I make sure I am well stocked with snacks to see out the queue. I also spend time prepping for markets and workshops, which I do fairly frequently.
How long have you been printmaking?
I made my return to screen printing about 5 years ago and have been properly back to linocuts for about a year and a half.
What inspires you?
Probably fairly obviously, I am inspired by anything green and leafy. I love the life that plants bring to a space. I do freelance illustration as well and am often inspired by the work I do for clients. I recently completed a commission for a yoga teacher and have turned some of the figures into plant-headed characters – a theme I’ve been playing with.
What is your favourite printmaking product?
My Pfeil cutters are dreamy. I also love printing on HoSho paper because there’s a bit of embossing when I use the press. Really, I love all the bits and pieces though. I cannot be trusted in a printmaking shop…
What have you made that you are most proud of?
I’m inspired by the work of Peace Direct and have started a series of terrariums filled with landscapes from some of the countries they work in. Even in some of the places really struggling with conflict, there are still areas of astounding natural beauty. I’m really proud of the first couple of these as they are 7 layer reduction prints and I love the way they’ve come out with a sort of painterly feel.
Where can we see your work? Where do you sell?
I post work in progress fairly frequently on Instagram @kaylenealder. I also have my own website with a webshop kaylenealder.com/plantprintsforpeace and an Etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/PlantPrintsforPeaceI do a fair few markets around London – the next one is https://www.greenroomsmarket.com/ where I’ll also be running a linocut workshop. I’m a member of the lovely local SE20 Art Group in Penge and will be taking part in the Penge Art Trail – exhibiting at the glorious Alexandra Nurseries for the whole of June.
What will we be seeing from you next?
Oooh, good question. Definitely more plant-headed people and the rest of the Peace Direct series. I’ve also been having a bit of a play with monoprinted screen prints but I need a lot more practise with those! I also volunteer for the Just A Card campaign https://www.justacard.org/ which aims to ensure people know the value and importance of supporting artists and small businesses. I know they have some big news coming up so I’m looking forward to supporting that too.
Do you have any advice for other printmakers and creatives?
I find I have to remind myself that everyone has their struggles – none of us are alone in that and I know that I have a creative crisis of confidence at least once a month! That’s really common for creatives – self-doubt – but I guess the challenge is to try and focus on the positives and learn from the negatives. So I guess my advice is to be kind to yourself and don’t be afraid to ask questions – there are lots of great peeps out there who are happy to help you through a print problem or just to give a few words of encouragement. Print nerds love a print problem!
I tend to think about an idea for a while and scribble mini sketches in the back of my diary until I’m more sure what I want to create – and then it’s over to the computer and my tablet to draw up the idea digitally. Once I’ve got the design ready it’s over to the studio to expose my design onto a screen using light-sensitive emulsion and an exposure unit.
Once I’ve got the design on a screen I enjoy mixing up colours from acrylic paint and screen printing medium – at this point I play around with what colours might work together (although I must admit I’m partial to black against a strong background colour!). During the process I try to capture images and videos to record and share my process.
How and where did you learn to print?
I discovered printmaking at university in my first year when I studied a printmaking module in 2005. I started out learning lots of different types of printmaking, but I especially loved screen printing as it’s so quick and hands on. After university, I continued to develop my printmaking through evening courses at Leeds College of Art, alongside an office job, to keep up my creativity outside work.
Why printmaking?
I love the screen printing process as it’s so quick and with screen printing medium I can mix up almost any colour to experiment with! It still feels like magic to me when I expose my design on a screen and I really enjoy the hands-on part of exposing a screen. I’m still convinced the design won’t come out on the screen – but it (nearly always!) does.
Where do you work?
I work in different places depending on what part of the process I’m doing – I start and finish in my studio at home (aka the spare room!) with a computer to create my designs and a printing bench to create the finished prints at home. My printing bench is just a garage bench that I’ve painted, with some hinge clamps attached – it works perfectly well, although I have been eyeing up making myself a vacuum bed.
For exposing my screens I take my screens down to Leeds Print Workshop, a local print co-operative in the centre of Leeds. Leeds Print Workshop is a lovely space with lots of great equipment and really knowledgeable printmakers for when I get stuck! It’s also a really nice experience to get to know other printmakers too. However, I do love printing in my studio at home in my own space – I love putting some music on, picking out my colours to print with, and getting stuck in.
Describe a typical day in your studio.
At the moment I work full time in an office job that often means I only get to work in the studio on a weekend (or evenings when the nights are much lighter!). I love having a full Saturday to print in my studio at home – by this point I have my design on the screen and can get really stuck into the process of creating final prints. Firstly, I focus on all the ‘clean’ tasks of getting equipment ready and cutting paper to the right size. Once this is all in place I can focus on mixing colours and screen printing.
How long have you been printmaking?
I’ve been printmaking on and off for 14 years and decided to set up a space at home about 18 months ago in line with setting up a business to sell my prints. My business is called Ink & Bear and has been a great driver for creating more often. It’s great to be able to print at home, but my next step is to be able to complete the end to end process at home by getting hold of a way to expose screens.
What inspires you?
My biggest inspiration to date has been exploring constellations and the night sky. I love travelling and visiting new places and always feel really inspired when I return from a trip. I’ve recently visited Japan and was really inspired by the strong history of printmaking. My number one inspiration is meeting creative people and learning about their creative processes – I always get a buzz and want to get back into the studio to create some more prints.
What is your favourite printmaking product?
I absolutely love getting a new screen for the first time fresh out of the box! I love having screens of different sizes, depending on what project I’m working on. My favourites are the aluminium screens sold by Handprinted. I also love having a variety of sizes of squeegees and have an old wooden one (the first one I ever bought!) that I still use the majority of the time.
What have you made that you are most proud of?
My favourite print is my large circular constellations print. It’s a simple design and I’m most proud of it as it started out as a small design with a few blobs and lines – I’ve developed the design quite a few times over time and now it’s a large square print with lots of detail. I love how using different colours effects the way the print looks – my favourite colour to print it in is either a metallic copper, or a blue to white gradient. I enjoy seeing how the colours mix when I print using a split fountain technique and I love seeing how different they look from the start of the process to the end as the inks get more and more mixed together.
Where can we see your work? Where do you sell?
I mostly sell my work on my website (www.inkandbear.co.uk) and at craft and print fairs around Yorkshire. I pop a lot of my work on my Instagram (www.instagram.com/inkandbear) and try to capture the process around making the work too.
What will we be seeing from you next?
I’ve been dreaming up a whale print for a while against a background of constellations. I’ve also got a dream of running classes one day – I think the process of screen printing is very therapeutic and I’d love to be able to share this with others.
Do you have any advice for other printmakers and creatives?
Just jump in and go for it! I spent years using a full-time job as an excuse not to find time to create and now it’s such a nice balance to be able to make something from scratch with such a hands on process.
