Well, that’s a question. With lots of answers.
I found printmaking in 2019. I’d just made a workbench from some old scaffold boards and put it in what was our spare room. I then sat down, wondering what to do next. A small space, this room had huge slanting windows letting in lots of light and both being creative sorts, myself and my wife Becky thought it could be put to good use as a little studio.
It was in this moment that I picked up my first lino block.
20 years as a photographer and I had begun to feel an itch to ‘create’ in a much more analogue way. Technology had changed so much and I now found that once I had composed my image in the viewfinder and pressed the shutter, the rest of my job involved sitting in front of a computer screen. I had created a little niche for myself capturing portraits of amazing local artisans - from farmers to weavers to bakers to shoemakers and as time went on, I started to long for a craft of my own.
Carving suited me right away. It kept my hands busy of an evening (I am not good at sitting still) and there’s an intense satisfaction in sharpening the simple carving tool and slicing it through the lino (like a hot knife through a freezing cold pat of butter). I have never had a problem reversing the image in my head, that came naturally. When you carve, you are removing what becomes the white, carving in the light if you like and leaving the positive shapes intact. That takes a bit of time to get your head around but I enjoyed that challenge too. I also loved working out the composition at the start which I am sure comes from my many years working as a photographer looking at positive and negative space. Funny how skills from the past can be applied in new ways.
And the subject matter itself? Well that came easily. I find beauty in so many everyday items - from coffee pots to bicycles to the humble bumble bee and so once I started, I very much couldn’t stop. I still have plenty of ‘retro chic’ and ‘kitchen table’ lino prints that sell to this day. What I also discovered was that, while we were still living in landlocked Oxfordshire, carving gave me time to take a pause and think of home. Cornwall, the sea, the harbours and fishing villages that I loved so much and I quickly found myself creating coastal prints to hang on the wall.
When I started, I had very little equipment - just some Pfeil carving tools and hessian backed lino, some paper, ink and a wooden spoon. Why a wooden spoon you ask? Well, without a printing press you need to find a way to apply pressure to the paper when you lay it on the inky block. A wooden spoon is the perfect tool for the job, applying gentle and even pressure to the paper and I loved assigning a different use to this humble household item. My wife Becky probably loved it slightly less - a professional cook and baker herself, she started to find her kitchen spoons in the studio or tucked into the back pocket of my jeans as I happily printed away. This was the craft I’d been looking for. Simple, humble materials and somewhat naive but (I thought) rather lovely results.
I soon acquired my first press - an antique French Nipping Press, heavy, solid and reliable. Probably built for book binders 200 years ago, it did the job for me and I loved turning and squeezing the iron handle, a whole body action which makes you part of the mechanism itself. A small, portable Pookie Press followed which was a more practical and lightweight solution for today’s printmaker and then, when funds allowed and I realised how committed I was now to this new craft, a wonderful Ironbridge Printmakers Gunning Etching Press.
Pulling a print through the etching press is magic. The connection between giving a big heave-ho on the wheel of the press and a boatmen at the wheel of his fishing vessel is not lost on me….although while Cornish fishermen face the dangerous roll of the ocean swell, the only real worry this Cornishman has is that the roller won’t apply the right pressure to the paper! And that’s another thing I love about lino. The test print exists for a reason: underexposed? Re-ink and increase the pressure. Overexposed? Try the reverse. There’s an art in printing and you get to know your press like a person - its quirks and personality, how it feels on a hot day or a chilly morning. But no matter how the print turns out, you can always try again. And again, until you get it right. Lino carvings are immensely giving and forgiving as you learn.
The print reveal has to be every printmaker's favourite moment. You never quite know how it will look when you peel the paper from the inky block and there’s a rush of excitement and anticipation as the image is revealed. All that hard work, usually hours and hours of carving suddenly comes to this. There may be a bit of chatter to carve away or adjustments to make to the press but basically, this is it. There’s no hiding in post production, no adjustments to make it in the edit, no real tweaks you can make to improve your work. It’s as honest as the day is long. And that’s probably what I love the most.
