Peter Williams - Terrestrial Locomotion - The Final Guest artist at The Print Shop.

Peter Williams, based in Cardiff is the Co-founder and studio director for The Print Market Project.

http://www.printmarketproject.com

On display from the 6^th November until the 29^th November

Pete will be transforming the entire feature wall at The Print Shop into one giant woodcut as he displays a huge block from his epic body of work Terrestrial Locomotion.

As the title suggests the work began its journey as a movement across country. Carrying a tiny sketchbook and a pencil Pete would begin by setting his running watch to zero, choosing a direction and then running in that direction until he couldn’t run any longer. Whatever appeared in front of him at this point would then be the subject of his initial drawing.

The Wood block we are lucky enough to be showing at The Print Shop in Bristol depicts what is left of the LLywernog Silver mine, in the title is also the Distance, 6.38m, the step count 8594 steps and the time 54minutes 18 seconds. This numerical figure serves to the picture a kind of map reference to where the subject stands, from the point in which the artist began his run. The circular shape signifies to Pete a kind of medallion for each run in the series of works.

About the work he says that ‘so many artists spend forever deciding what to create a piece of work about and at the end of the day it could as well be anything’. This method of letting chance and stamina find the subject presents a new way of looking at the artist’s context for which they base their work.  Routed in landscape the work has a physical context not only in how the subject was chosen but also it’s method.

From a drawing about 3inches square Pete reworks the image onto a block 8ft square and then uses chisels, wire brushes, power saws and gouges to expressively recreate the image into marine ply exploiting the directions in the layers of grain and the physicality of the entire process.

It’s great to have this opportunity to show a monumental piece, where the block itself is the art and one which reflects the very essence of print, the transferal of an image from one surface to another.

LLywernog Sliver Mine

6.38m 8594s 54.18

Woodcut Block Black ink on Ply

8ft x 8ft 

2012

For More information about this work there’s a great video interview with Pete at the following link .

http://www.culturecolony.com/search?s=pete+williams&view=videos

Written By JJ Lynch. 

Meet the Printmaker - Christine Howes

Christine at work

Please can you introduce yourself and tell us a little about your work…What sort of prints do you make?
My name is Christine Howes and my art is based on my love of natural history and landscape. I like to create intimate scenes of wildlife in its habitat in the English countryside. I rarely run out of inspiration.

A wood engraving of St John the Baptist, Churchill, Somerset. This print is very small, 10 cms x 8 cms and typical of wood engravings which are printed from a woodblock made from hard end grain wood

Oystercatchers, detail. A woodcut and a linocut block are printed together to create this image

Are you solely a printmaker or do you work in any other creative fields?
I am not solely a printmaker as I also paint and draw in other mediums;- watercolours, acrylics, oils and soft pastels. I studied Graphic Design and Illustration for five years. I was an illustrator in publishing for about twenty five years, using watercolour and gouache and working on children’s non fiction books and magazines.

What is your earliest recollection of making a print and what made you to want to do more?
I made a few prints at Filton Technical College in Bristol, which I attended at the age of sixteen. I tried Lithography and Silkscreen. I enjoyed the technical challenges of printing, which I also experienced at Art College at Kingston upon Thames where I learned typography.

Could you give us an insight into where you work – your studio/workspace and where you print?
In 2001 I attended classes at Spike Print Studio in relief Printmaking with Peter Reddick R E. It was a great chance to learn from a real master. I now work on three types of relief prints; woodcuts, linocuts and wood engravings. I print them at Spike Print Studio but often design and carve them at home where I have my own studio but no press.
It is great to meet other printmakers and to work alongside them. I now also regularly teach an eight week course in relief printmaking at Spike Print Studio. And I run some workshops for children at the RWA. It is important that skills are passed on to the next generation.

What inspires you and are there any themes or ideas that often run through your work?
I select subjects from observation, drawing frequently from life and from exhibits at Bristol museum. I sketch outside and take my own reference photos. I begin with small, thumbnail sketches to work out the composition. Then I look for a suitable piece of wood or decide on lino or vinyl which I like using. Printmaking has been good for my art as it forces me to be spare with detail and colours. You have to make choices within the print as each colour is printed separately. The most colours I have used on any one print is five. This takes time and patience.

Seagulls, Woodcut

Printmaking is made up of lots of different processes, which aspect do you enjoy the most?
I like all aspects of printmaking except the cleaning up! But the most wonderful thing is being able to print an edition of twenty or more, so that the work becomes more affordable for people to buy.

The work of which other printmaker/s do you admire?
The printmakers I admire are Samuel Palmer, Robin Tanner and Peter Reddick. I enjoy connecting with printing traditions that go way back to Thomas Bewick and the early printing presses.

How would you like to develop your printmaking skills in the future?
My goals are to expand my skills in printmaking with wood and to try to create sublety within a hard-edged medium. It is an endless and fascinating challenge.

Thanks Christine. We love your mark making especially in the wood engraving of St John the Baptist.

Christine Howes' work is currently featured in the second volume of The Print Shop, which runs until September 29th. If you can swing by the shop you will be able to see the work from some of the best printmakers local to Bristol. Each artist has a unique style and there are many different printing processes that are used to create everything in the pop up shop. 

The Print Shop

Unit 6

Quakers Friars

Cabot Circus

Bristol

BS1 3BU

Open Daily

Mon - Sat 10am - 6pm

Sun 11am - 5pm

Meet the Printmaker - Ben Goodman

Kwabene / wood engraving

Next up in our 'Meet the Printmaker' series is Ben Goodman, a lovely man who specialises in wood engraving and letterpress. Ben's striking images really stand out in The Print Shop, so we were really interested to find out more about him and his work...

Please can you introduce yourself and tell us a little about your work…
What sort of prints do you make?
Hello, I’m Ben. I moved to Bristol in 2006 from Coventry and have loved every minute of it. Last year I bought a victorian printing press that has allowed me to develop my wood engraving into a full time obsession.

Are you solely a printmaker or do you work in any other creative fields?
I do bits of design work to help balance the books, but I also dabble in Letterpress, automata and animation which is great fun.

What is your earliest recollection of making a print and what made you to want to do more?
We had a very brief introduction to linocut during 6th Form, but other than that I hadn’t paid much attention to it (or even heard of it). I was dead set on becoming an animator until I entered the print rooms of Bower Ashton during my Foundation Year and never looked back.

What inspires you and are there any themes or ideas that often run through your work?
Ultimately I try to make images that stir an emotion. I don’t want to do this by depicting controversial subjects, but more subtly through use of tone. For me, black ink is the most evocative colour, I don’t know why this is, but I always find a black and white print, photo, film, etc far more emotional than it’s colour filled equal.

Maxwell / wood engraving

Jungle Gardener / wood engraving

Could you give us an insight into where you work – your studio/workspace and
where you print?
When I’m not working behind a bar, I spend all my time pottering about in my studio. I’ve got a decent sized space at BV Studios in Bedminster equipped with a huge Albion Press, plan chest and computer. I love spending time there cutting wood engravings or just bodging together bits of wood!

The work of which other printmaker/s do you admire?
It goes without saying that I admire the impossibly detailed work of Thomas Bewick. So other than him I’m always stunned by the etchings of Paco Aguilar and Norman Ackroyd, the energy of Ronald Searle’s drawings and the general brilliance seen in contemporary Chinese printmaking.

Printmaking is made up of lots of different processes, which aspect do you enjoy the most?
I like all bits apart from editioning. I’d be quite happy to only print one good print if someone was prepared to pay the price tag!

Robin / process 01

Robin / process 02

Robin / process 03

Do you have a favourite tool or something you find invaluable when printing?
I love the leather sandbag that Simon Brett kindly gave to me. It’s a simple tool that at first glance is dismissed by almost everyone, but without it you cannot easily achieve those accurate curves and subtle tones. It’s also fun to polish when you need to procrastinate. (for those of you who have never seen one, it looks like a 6 inch leather spaceship and goes underneath your wood block to allow you to easily turn and move the block while cutting).

Sandbag underneath in-progress wood block

Can you share a little printing trick or secret with us ?
Thin Japanese paper is perfect for printing. The Japanese have been making paper and printing far longer than us Europeans and have mastered the process. So don’t bother with all that heavy stuff and invest in some strong Japanese tissue. It’s stronger and more resistant than anything you’ll find in England. Having said that, I do find the English like things to be weighty because it gives a perceived sense of value (and I’ve heard similar remarks from people well accustomed to international markets). So it’s no surprise that when I let a person choose between a wood engraving that’s printed onto cheap (but thick) paper and thin (but extremely high quality) japanese paper they go for the former.

How would you like to develop your printmaking skills in the future?
I’d like to take my wood blocks into the real world away from the studio and engrave directly from the actual subject. It would also be fun to produce a huge engraving, but I’m still waiting to win the Euro Millions.

Maxwell 2 / wood engraving

Which printed publication do you most look forward to thumbing through?
The wood engraving journal MULTIPLES which comes out every quarter. It’s a treasure trove of interesting articles and beautiful engravings.

Monochrome or multi-coloured?
As you might expect, I’m a black and white person. But I do always admire a multi-coloured piece of art, partly because I could never do it.

Thanks Ben, we really appreciate you answering our questions, it is also lovely to see traditional techniques being used with such skill.

Ben's work can be seen in Volume 1 of The Print Shop, until August 25th. He will also be sharing his knowledge in a workshop 'Wood Engraving for Beginners', over 2 evenings in August - click here for more information.

The Print Shop

Unit 6

Quakers Friars

Cabot Circus

Bristol

BS1 3BU

Open Daily

Mon - Sat 10am - 6pm

Sun 11am - 5pm