An unusual project

I’ve been given a rather interesting project by a friend of mine. She’s a creative type herself; a garden designer primarily with massage and naturopathy thrown in. She recently had some fairly extensive remodelling done on her house and found a piece of the original wallpaper still attached to the wall. The house was built in 1928 so the paper is rather elderly. My mission is to turn it into a plate of some sort, collagraph I guess, and print from it. It’s quite heavily embossed so I’m hoping that with a few coats of varnish, I can stop it from flattening as it goes through the press. I shall try printing it both intaglio and relief to see what I get.

Card cuts at Red Hot Press

I spent a very pleasant day last Friday teaching a card cut workshop at Red Hot Press. My three students, all of whom are practising artists and printmakers, were delightful company and created some interesting images.

We spent the morning looking at the different effects that can be produced with card cuts; line, tone and texture, and the variables such as types of card and varnish. My students then made some plates and varnished them. We had a relaxing lunch whilst waiting for the varnish to dry, then spent the afternoon printing and experimenting with intaglio and relief techniques.

Something that struck me was how difficult it can be for experienced artists to learn new techniques sometimes. I think to avoid discouragement, it’s important to stop oneself from becoming too bound up in the image. One should try to concentrate on the technique itself; mark-making and experimenting with all the variables a particular medium offers. Maybe look at the final image in detail, picking out what works and what doesn’t, rather than viewing the image a whole.

Image by Ruth Barrett-Danes

It’s been a fair few years since I did any relief printmaking; linocuts of course. These I did after I left art school and no longer had access to an etching press. As the subtlety and variation of marks, tones and textures of etching were what drew me to printmaking in the first place, and really suited my work, I found lino a bit frustrating. I know many artists are able to bring a delicacy and textural quality to this medium, but I just couldn’t. What I produced was so flat and chunky – and downright clumsy – that it just didn’t grab me at all. There followed an eight year hiatus during which I just drew a little and made the odd linocut. Luckily for me and my frustrated inner printmaker, an open access printmaking workshop opened up just down the road from me - and I was away!

Four and a half years of thirst-quenching intaglio printing later, I find that owing to family illness, I can’t get down to the workshop as often as I did. But I have to print, no matter what. Those wood engraving tools that I was given for my birthday over a year ago, and sit untried on the bookshelf, look mighty enticing now…