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: 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

Meet the printmaker: Ann Gover

 

 

 



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

My name is Ann Gover, and I’m an artist working in various media – currently enamel and etching, as well as printmaking. I think of myself as a traditional painter with strong links to the past.

 

 

                                                                                        

Reverie

 

 

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

I have taught watercolour and worked in pastel for many years.

 

 

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

 

I come from an artistic family – my American grandfather was the architect for Bush House in the Strand in London, my grandmother was a sculptor, my mother painted and wrote, and my father was a writer. They gave me art books when I was quite young and encouraged me to paint; when I first saw etchings by Goya, Rembrandt and Kathe Kollwitz I wanted to experiment with printmaking.

 

Perseus carrying the head of the Gorgon Medusa.

 

 

 



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

I travel frequently and read a great deal. I derive inspiration from the countries I visit, particularly Africa, and from writers such as W. G. Sebald and Joseph Conrad as well as the Greek myths.

Could you give us an insight into where you work – your studio/workspace and where you print?
My studio is a room and kitchenette with lots of light on a first floor. I have my kiln there (instead of an oven!) for enamelling, but I don’t have a printing press, so I do my printing at Spike Island.

 

 

 

My Studio

 

 

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

The Brazilian artist Ana Maria Pacheco is a great inspiration. Also Odilon Redon, Paula Rego and Kathe Kollwitz.

 

Printmaking is made up of lots of different processes, which aspect do you enjoy the most?
I love the spontaneity of monoprinting (monoprints are also known as monotypes). In a more contemplative mood I like planning drypoints.

 

Pandora

 

 

 



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

I like working a paintbrush into the ink when I’m doing a monoprint, as this frees up the design, and is a link with my painting.

 

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

To get very dark areas in my drypoints, instead of crosshatching I use different grades of sandpaper.

How would you like to develop your printmaking skills in the future?
I would like to do larger work and experiment more with aquatint.

                                                                                                                                                      African Night

 

 

 

 

Thank you Ann for sharing your artistic world, processes and inspirations.

Ann Gover 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