Looking back at our etching workshop

Print maker's Gilly Thompson and Liz Bath held an introduction into etching course last month, from which participants created some beautiful prints. Here are some process photographs from the evening.

As well as take home a unique set of prints participants learnt how to use an etching needle to create a drypoint image, how to register artwork and experimented with an inked plate to achieve different tonal effects.

Check out their websites to see more of their work.

www.gillianthompson.co.uk

www.elizabethbath.co.uk

Meet The Artist: Hannah McVicar

Please can you introduce yourself and tell us a little about your work…What sort of prints do you make?

I am Hannah McVicar and I produce colourful floral and botanical screenprints that I exhibit internationally and throughout the country.

Are you solely a printmaker or do you work in any other creative fields?

I am an Illustrator and Printmaker, I produce floral illustrations for books, magazines, greeting cards and packaging. My illustrations were recently compared to William Morris in a review in the New York Times.

I have worked for a variety of clients including The Times Newspaper, Gardens Illustrated magazine and Ebury Publishing.

What is your earliest recollection of making a print and what made you to want to do more?

My first memory of producing a screenprint was at Girl Guides. We had to cut an image out of a waxed transfer that was applied to the screen and then we screenprinted our image on to a t-shirt. I of course had drawn a flower but then I was only 10 at the time.

It was whilst I was studying at Falmouth College of Art that I really started to explore all areas of printmaking. I spent my first year experimenting with relief printmaking, in my second year I was really interested in aquatints, but it was in my final year that I branched out into screenprinting, where I started to experiment with colour.

What inspires you and are there any themes or ideas that often run through your work?

I am often asked why do I just concentrate on plants and flowers. Many believe that it is because of my upbringing around plants, visiting botanical gardens and RHS Flower shows. And yes this has had a massive influence on me. I do not think many people of my age can state that they have been to 20 RHS Chelsea flower shows. I have had the privilege of being able to walk around the showground at 7am in the morning before the gates open. The floral marquee is full of exhibits and plants from all over the world, thousands and thousands of prize winning specimens. The colour and smell is intense. Every year I find a new plant that inspires me. People may find me crazy but I like to imagine the plants as characters, dancing with one another within a garden. I think nature is amazing and the more I research the more I admire the variety of plants there are in this world. 

Could you give us an insight into where you work – your studio/workspace and where you print?

I am very fortunate to be apart of two studios within Bristol. I have a studio space at Jamaica Street Studios where I produce all of my designs and illustrations and I am also a member of Spike Print Studio. I first joined Spike Print studio in 2004 and then after a brief period of working in America, I rejoined in 2007. This print studio is one of the main reasons why I have stayed in Bristol. Not only is it an amazing facility but it also contains some of the best printmakers in Britain, who inspire and encourage me with my work.

The work of which other printmaker/s do you admire?

It is more of an era than one particular artist, I have always been influenced by the books, publications and prints produced in the 1980’s – Aubrey Beardsley, Alphonse Mucha, Edmund Dulac and Kay Nielsen to name a few. There is a beauty and romance to their work.

But the artist, who has had the biggest impact on me, is my great Grandfather Thomas Lowinsky.

Printmaking is made up of lots of different processes, which aspect do you enjoy the most?           

It is the process of creating a screenprinting that excites me. You can never quite tell how the stencils will work and how the colours will react to one another. I love to use tints and transparent colours that I layer to create depth and texture.

Do you have a favourite tool or something you find invaluable when printing?

Magnets - when I am proofing or just working out my colour combinations, I will magnet up the print on the wall and walk away from it. When I am printing I am very close to my work but this is not how someone else will view it, so I like to hang it up and walk to the other side of the room, if it draws me in then I know it is right.

Can you share a little printing trick or secret with us?

Florescent pink is the secret ingredient to most of my colours that I mix.

How would you like to develop your printmaking skills in the future?

I have always been very ambitious with my prints, with more layers and colours and bigger compositions. Since my exhibition in Japan, I have been approaching botanical gardens throughout England about producing a series of prints influenced by the planting combination within their gardens. I really want to push my colour combinations with brighter and bolder prints.

Which printed publication do you most look forward to thumbing through?

It is slightly biased of me but I do enjoy reading Gardens Illustrated magazine, it contains the best garden photography.

Monochrome or multi-coloured?

Multi coloured!

A young Hannah McVicar at Thomas Lowinsky’s retrospective exhibition,

Tate Britain, 1990.

Wow! Thanks for that insight into your wonderful botanical works, it's really great to know how much time, effort and skill goes into making your complex and highly desirable prints. Great to know you also hold the local record for visits to the Chelsea Flower Show. Its been a pleasure having your work in the shop. 

Hannah's screen prints will be on sale in the print shop until the end of the final volume, there's an excellent range of her works so pop down and take a look for yourselves. 

The Print Shop 

Unit 6 

Quakers Friars 

Cabot Circus 

Bristol 

BS1 3BU 

Open Daily 

Mon - Sat 10am - 6pm 

Sun 11am - 5pm

Meet the printmaker: John Joseph Lynch

Please can you introduce yourself and tell us a little about your work…What sort of prints do you make? 
Hi, I’m John Joseph Lynch, I’ve made a variety of types of prints since I began print making.

I mainly concentrate on fine art and experimental printmaking and have an MA with distinction in Multidisciplinary Printmaking. For my final show I took the Multidisciplinary aspect quite literally when I made a body of hybrid prints that re-synthised classic Iconography in relation to consumer philosophies. I made hybrid luxurious pieces of print work combining linocut, digital, and flock velvet print along side screen printed enamels. I screen printed acid resists then deep etched copper plates and finished this with a cloisonné approach to create printed relics made of copper and coloured glass, I used etchings onto plaster casts and continued to combine methods and print approaches.

The MA was a explosion of experimental adventures, combining a range of print processes over the three year duration of the course, in which I was also awarded a two week residency in the states studying the art of fine paper making. I have always enjoyed an experimental approach to my work and have often pushed in the other direction from ‘the norm’.

False Paradise, Ed 5, Lino Cut, Digital and Flock

After the MA I won the 'Neo Print Prize' for 'New Media In Print' and went on to be awarded the 'Peter Reddick Bursary' for 'Contemporary Relief Print' which allowed me to spend a year developing a relief print practice. It was a great time to make mistakes and develop from them.

This has recently ended and I would now say I have developed a unique and complex style of woodcut printing to take forwards and create new work, in which I use the photographic or digitally produced image in a hand-made fashion, combining traditional and contemporary methods for making art.

I really enjoy working with wood and the challenges this presents. It’s like paper: always changing. Sometimes it’s a real pleasure to work with, and other times it is a pest.

Key Block for Royal Mail.

My work is often conceptual as I have a contemporary fine art background, practice and interest.  I really enjoy the methods and possibilities within this context to explore, combine and create new types of imagery. Along with this, I love the science and elemental factors involved in fine print and the types of inks and papers that always give new results.  Sometimes it’s a feeling like painting where the elements are working with you, which is a lovely mood to be in.  

I’ve been printmaking for 16 years now and teach screen-printing and relief printing along with the odd visiting lecture, and really enjoy sharing my print knowledge with other printmakers and artists. This exchange of knowledge is really important for any creative development. 

This is why I’ve really enjoyed being part of the organising team for The Print Shop, and meeting so many great printmakers, helping to raise the profile and public understanding of print and also getting in touch with some true masters in the field, like Yuji Hiratsuka. 

Are you solely a printmaker or do you work in any other creative fields?
My first degree was fine art Painting and printmaking. Back then I used to really enjoy painting but it wasn’t long until the lure of printmaking grabbed me and I ended up producing a final show which was heavily print centralised. I even remember using oil based inks with screen printing to make dramatic abstract works in my teens. So, I’ve always been very attracted to Printmaking.

All the while I’ve always been really into making music and performance. After university some good pals and I soon got ourselves into a pretty outrageous band called Pink Grease. We got signed to Mute Records and toured the world, making our mark in the underground scenes and playing hundreds of shows. I love live music performance as it’s so immediately expressive and fun. I’ve put together a few music formations whilst in Bristol and had some fun gigs. I’m currently having a bit of time out of the live scene to work on new ideas, but I would say I prioritise printmaking as my main creative process these days. 

Mostly all of my work and practice is focused on driving forward my printmaking these days and recently that’s also included driving forward the profile of printmaking with projects such as The Print shop and connecting Bristol printmakers to friends at the Hong Kong Open Print Shop.

Printmaking is a language of imagery and production that suits my needs the most, I love it’s immediate historic reference and the connotations it has to so many aspects of art and modern culture. We’re surrounded by print and I’m a big believer of art being rooted in the real and reflecting society, so for me print is perfect.

Some Proofs made during the work of Royal Mail: V1

I teach printmaking and this is also a creative process to me, as I’m always surprised what people - with little or no experience in these processes - can come up with. The results of loads of mistakes and happy accidents can teach you things you’d never expect.  I think teaching and the learning of new skills is a really important aspect of all creativity. Sharing your practice is essential to it’s development and also another creative part of it. 

What is your earliest recollection of making a print and what made you to want to do more?
Foot Prints in the mud: making a mark of your own presence and place.

What inspires you and are there any themes or ideas that often run through your work?
I am usually inspired by the things that go on around us in the world, often by media and the news. I like my art to have a reflection to how I perceive the world or a given theme within it.  For example, my Criminal Prints showing a hybrid president of the united States, a mix of four presidents to create a fictional yet familiar figure head. This was also inspired by fiction such as '1984' or 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep'. I love a good story for new ideas, which is why I often slightly dramatized or over fictionalise, real places or events.

Wesley, Ed2 in variations, woodcut. 

My newest print, which I have, at times been working on in the shop and is now on display in The Print Shop and the Old Fire Station in Oxford, is Royal Mail: V1.

This print was inspired by a number of things, firstly it has reference to a copy of a 1950’s post card of East Berlin I found. At that time, the vision of a utopian new lifestyle was offered and the postcard showed these amazing new flats in Technicolour. I loved the double sided edge to this image and the forced enthusiasm of the colours.

In my new print the image is an adjusted version of the old post office centre by Temple Meads, which to me stands, in its way, as an iconic monument, yet in may ways it is useless, unsellable, impossible to develop. It is places like this that always remind me of Satre’s Nausea, where he writes about the consistent forces of nature always ready to reclaim and take over wherever it can, purely acting on existence.

To me there is a poetic beauty in this type of place and a reflection of human conditions, the kind of place that can trigger hundreds of daydreams, yet in itself is the shell of it’s former purpose - like an empty crab.

Royal Mail: V1, Woodcut

Could you give us an insight into where you work – your studio/workspace and where you print?
I work in three places mostly: Firstly, at Spike Print Studio, as since being awarded the bursary there I’ve really been able to push my work and develop woodcut printmaking. It’s a truly great studio and I recommend it to anyone interested in print. The staff are all great and there is a real public approach to making work, with amazing print work happening mostly every day it’s a great place and we also do really good courses.

Secondly, I have a shared studio space at the Island Art Space where I have acquired a great screen printing set up and we also make a bit of music here. My friend Danny Le Guilcher is a great portrait painter and he paints here too. All the team running the art space are really clued up to getting the old building off the ground and I run workshops in the space too. There are always new shows, exhibitions and events happening there, so it is a great place to work, plus it’s right in the city centre.

Thirdly I must say there is nothing like a bit of sunny woodcutting in the cratch back home on the boat.

Which other printmakers' work do you admire?
Being heavily involved with the starting and keeping of The Print Shop since the outset has meant that I’ve met some really great printmakers in Bristol, who make some really amazing work. I’m so happy the shop has really brought together a range of approaches and talents in the art, raising the bar for printmaking in Bristol. It was also really great to get one of my favourite known printmakers involved for volume one. Yuji Hiratsuka’s work is truly beautiful and it was great having a Skype interview with him in the shop. 

There are so many printmakers I really admire the work of. I really like the prints by Katsutoshi Yuasa, Christiana Baumgartner, Chuck Close, Carol Summers, Thomas Kilpper and naturally I love the work of Andy Warhol and the pop art printmakers like Rauschenburg. The list goes on and I’m always finding new artists I really like. Artists have always used printmaking as a strong point for visual communication in the arts. I also really love the traditional Japanese Woodblock by artists like Hokusai, Kuniyoshi and Hiroshige and wish I could be this good.

Skeleton, Kuniyoshi, Woodcut. 

Local artists like Ian Chamberlain, Emma Stibbon, Martin grimmer, are all amazing at what they do and artists we’ve had in the shop like Hannah McVicar, Gillian Thompson,  Holly Drewett, and Coo Geller all make really interesting work with print and push it in different directions.

Our last guest also works like this. Peter Williams’s monumental woodblocks are a real homage to traditional print. He’ll be in the print shop talking about his work on the 21st.

Maybe it’s clear by the above list that I like artists who push common associations to an art and create new and exiting approaches.

Can you share a little printing trick or secret with us?
I share loads of printing magic on my courses and in the studio. Learning from others is always a good one. Most importantly, enjoy what you are doing and always stay calm when printing, although sometimes this isn’t the easiest.

I’m always booking new workshops for artists in my studio and other print studios so if you want to learn more you can get in touch with me through my website, jjlynch.org

How would you like to develop your printmaking skills in the future?
It’s a constant development for me, so I hope this continues. I always like to move out of the safety zone and see what’s new to learn so I always look forwards to the next piece of work, I hope this doesn’t change.

Which printed publication do you most look forward to thumbing through?
Printmaking Today, and exhibition catalogues.



Thank you for taking the time out to answer our questions John. It's inspiring to have not only your input and direction with the running of the shop, but also your incredible multidisciplinary approach to print-making.

John has a range of brand new work currently for sale in the shop, which is open from now until Christmas. Come and purchase his prints, while stocks last. A great personal treat or the ideal gift for a friend.

The Print Shop 

Unit 6 

Quakers Friars 

Cabot Circus 

Bristol 

BS1 3BU 

Open Daily 

Mon - Sat 10am - 6pm 

Sun 11am - 5pm

Meet the printmaker: Ian Chamberlain

Please can you introduce yourself and tell us a little about your work...

What sort of prints do you make?
My name is Ian Chamberlain and I am an artist/printmaker.
I work primarily with Etching and am inspired by man made objects.

Are you solely a printmaker or do you work in any other creative fields?
I work with print and drawing. I use drawing as a way to record information
and understand the subject. I will then take selected drawings that I feel
will be enhanced by the etching process. I usually create a series of prints
to give me several ways to record the subject matter.
I will sometimes exhibit drawings separately and alongside the prints.

What is your earliest recollection of making a print and what made you to want to do more?
My earliest recollection of printmaking was printing potato cuts at primary school, funnily enough the work has not changed that much, it is still about physical manipulation of the print matrix through cutting and scraping.
When I was introduced to the Rhinoceros Print by Albrecht Durer I was
fascinated in the way Printmaking can be used to tell a story or be used to
deliver information that may be correct or not.

 

  
What inspires you and are there any themes or ideas that often run through your work?
My work is influenced by manmade structures, reinterpreting them as monuments placed within the landscape. They are devoid of people; the architectural scale can no longer be based on the physical measurement of the human body. I am interested in the use of a traditional Print process such as etching being used to record subject matter that is generally at the cutting edge of technology for its time. I aim to represent and interpret the form and function of these objects, simplifying the complex structure. The prints are constantly being scrutinized, giving them an existence of their own rather than a perfectly re-produced image. I am interested in the use of a traditional Print process such as etching being used to record subject matter that is generally at the cutting edge of technology for its time.

The work of which other printmaker/s do you admire?
I have always taken huge influence from Giorgio Morandi and Piranesi and although not printmakers in their own right, Bernd and Hilla Bechers photographs have given me huge inspiration and given me a wider scope
for my own work. I also get inspired by teaching onto the M.A Printmaking course and Drawing and Applied Arts course at UWE (University of the West of England). It is very easy to be able to feed off the energy and enthusiasm the students bring. Over the last few years some very exciting work has been created and I hope even more diverse and challenging works will be achieved
in the future.

Printmaking is made up of lots of different processes, which aspect do you enjoy the most?       
For me the enjoyment is in the physical manipulation of the plate and the effects this brings to the final print. I spend a lot of time working and reworking the plates; it is in this time spent I feel the prints have a life of their own away from the original subject matter.

Do you have a favourite tool or something you find invaluable when printing?
My burnisher, music and coffee.

Can you share a little printing trick or secret with us ?
Add a little bit of chalk to your ink to make it stiffer, this will make it harder
to over wipe.

How would you like to develop your printmaking skills in the future? 
I would love to have more time to dedicate to my work and really start
to develop an understanding of the range of marks and tones that can
be achieved through etching.

Monochrome or multi-coloured?
Monochrome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 Ian will be at The Print Shop for the rest of Volume 3.

The Print Shop

Unit 6

Quakers Friars

Cabot Circus

Bristol

BS1 3BU

Open Daily

Mon - Sat 10am - 6pm

Sun 11am - 5pm

Meet the printmaker: Gilian Thompson

Please can you introduce yourself and tell us a little about your work…What sort of prints do you make?

 

I did a photography degree right before everything turned digital.  I travelled
for 10 years then moved to Bristol to do an MA in Multi-disciplinary Printmaking. I am a member of Spike Print Studio and I’m currently working as a Technical Intern at UWE’s Print Centre.

I specialise in intaglio printing and etch with both copper and aluminium.
My work is about paring-down form and line to a minimum in order to evoke
a particular emotion.  I’m interested in how simplicity can produce a quiet yet powerful presence in space.

 

 



Are you solely a printmaker or do you work in any other creative fields?

Just print. It takes up all my time.

 

 

What is your earliest recollection of making a print and what made you to want to do more?

An old Catalan artist, Albert Plaza, taught me how to etch with nitric acid a few years ago. I liked the alchemy of it.

 

 



 

What inspires you and are there any themes or ideas that often run through your work?

Simple elemental forms, handmade paper and lots of black ink.  My inspiration comes a lot from found photographs, and reinventing compositions.

 

 

 

 



 

 

The work of which other printmaker/s do you admire?

The story of Kathan Brown who took an old etching press she found in Edinburgh all the way over to San Francisco in the 1960’s.  With this press she set up Crown Point Press. Functioning as a print workshop and publisher, Crown Point invites artists to complete a residency where they are assigned a personal technician.  Over the years it has hosted artists such as Sol LeWitt, Chuck Close, Anish Kapoor, Ed Ruscha and Kiki Smith. Art historian Susan Tallman, author of The Contemporary Print, has described Crown Point Press as, ‘The most instrumental American printshop in the revival of etching as a medium of serious art.’

http://www.crownpoint.com/

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

Printmaking is made up of lots of different processes, which aspect do you enjoy 

the most?

Inking and wiping the plate before printing. It’s meditative.

 

Do you have a favourite tool or something you find invaluable when printing?

Heavy weight handmade paper, with beautiful asymmetrical sides and feathery deckles. Camp coffee- though, not to drink!

 

 

 

 

Can you share a little printing trick or secret with us ?

Make yourself a reusable registration sheet. If you draw a square grid on a piece of mark resist you can use the same sheet no matter what your plate or paper size.

 

How would you like to develop your printmaking skills in the future?                          

 

I  would like to edition work for artists.  I like the idea of working with people who don’t use printmaking in their everyday practice. I’m curious to see how a sculptor or a painter would approach etching. One of the most interesting collaborations I’ve heard of is when John Cage put fire through a press.



 



 

Gilly will be at The Print Shop for the rest of Volume 3.

She will also be teaching Intro To Etching on 1st November, find out more about the workshop click here 

The Print Shop

Unit 6

Quakers Friars

Cabot Circus

Bristol

BS1 3BU

Open Daily

Mon - Sat 10am - 6pm

Sun 11am - 5pm