Return to the Print Studio

Printmaking

I’ve recently been asked to do some printing for Oxford University Press (OUP) for an upcoming event, the brief was to print a keepsake from an existing OUP copper plate. This was great but my first big problem was lack of access to good printmaking facilities, in a way the project arriving when it did was excellent timing, since it forced me to get something sorted out.

We’ve now been living in SE London for over a year and perhaps it was time to start looking into print studios and possibly some art spaces and much needed community. I wanted to start working back in the print studio for not just to complete a worthwhile project but to also start working as a printmaker again. It seems to have been a long time since I’ve considered working in the print studio but another recent project with the Virginia based ‘One Off’ group of printmakers and some visits to old Professors gave me some more encouragement.

Luckily we found the Thames Barrier print studio and I was accepted as a key holder, so far the experience has been great albeit I’m a little frustrated that I have to complete the project for OUP before I can really engage with creative printmaking, but that was deal I made with myself, that this had to be in the first instance financially self sustaining. There is little point to working away in the studio for yourself unless you can make it pay on both an intellectual level and a monetary one.

I’ve always retained some links to art even when not personally being productive, but perhaps with the work I do it’s a much-needed outlet and a way in which to engage the brain on in a different type of thought process.

I’m beavering away on the keepsake prints, which will number 100 when finished, each print takes about 15 minutes to produce so a 100 is going to take some time! But I’ve done this type of thing many times in the past and you just have to be very patient and just work carefully and steadily.

The plate itself is a Michael Burghers (perhaps more about him later) engraved copper plate circa 1690’s. It’s a lovely plate to print but has its own particular ‘issues’ which need careful attention when printing. I do like to iconography of the pate but will probably like it a little less after I’ve printed over a 100 of them. OUP also have the original drawing of the plate design, also by Burghers with some notations.

OK so back to the print studio but what happens to all those other things I did with my spare time, I guess it will all have to fit somehow or other…

By the Thames Barrier even!