Printmaking and Me

When I left work six years ago, with the intention of becoming an artist, I had no idea where this would lead.
I very quickly became interested in printmaking and decided to focus on this area of fine art. I completed a BA in Fine Art at Bretton College (now part of the University of Leeds) and also an MA in printmaking at Bradford College.

Creating a print involves thinking about an image in a different way from creating a painting. Each print process has unique characteristics and there is an excitement in 'pulling' the first print from the plate. The result is always a surprise, not least because, in many printmaking processes, such as etching, drypoint, lino and woodcut, the image is reversed.

By examining the 'states' of a print, such as an etching, it is possible to see how the artist has developed an image over time. Picasso produced several sets of prints where, at each state, significant changes were made to the image.

With screen prints each colour is applied as a layer, rather like a colour image in a book or magazine. Contrast that with how a painter might work - a dab of blue here, some yellow there, some more blue here... Thus, a printmaker has to think about an image in a very different way. Printmaking inks can be very transparent and applying one colour over another produces a third colour, a quality which I enjoy exploiting in my own work.

How unique is a print?

Many artists sell their work to the public in the form of a 'limited edition'. This can mean that a painting has been professionally photographed and then commercially reproduced in huge quantities. This has given the term 'edition' a bad name because it can lead to the impression that editions are mass-produced and the resultant prints are of little value. For the fine art printmaker, however, producing prints is still a craft requiring technical skills, time and physical effort. An etching plate can take several days to create and up to an hour to print and even when an edition is being produced by a skilled printmaker it is possible to see minute differences between each print.