printing

As I mentioned before in this post, I have been so enjoying Christine Schmidt's 'Print Workshop' book. This is another step in my recent printmaking odyssey.

I realised there was a printmaking-shaped gap in my knowledge and experience. To that end, I did a course here in etching, which was pricey but great. Then a longer one here in all kinds of printmaking (I was pregnant at the time so could unfortunately not do some of the more noxious processes), and that was fantastic. Recently, I did a screenprinting day here and loved it. This was the result:

My own personal Pink Floyd cover. I believe this kind of recursive image is known as the Droste effect. Thank you wikipedia.

I think what I love so much about printmaking is that although the end product is your basic, flat picture, the process is more akin to craft. Very handmade, very technical and precise, and best of all, very imperfect. The etching process was like stepping back in time, I loved it. All that burning, burnishing, and smoking with a taper. Gorgeous.

One of the projects in 'Print Workshop' is to make linocut personalised stationary. On the rare occasions I do send things through the post, I find it depressing to scrawl something on a bit of scrap paper, so I thought I'd have a go.

Great. I must be a sucker for punishment as lettering is so tricky to get right, mirror image, small space and so on, but hey, if it is meant as a letterhead, what can you do? The 'G' is a bit of a dog's dinner, but otherwise I am quite pleased with the result. 

I worked on the kitchen table and it was lovely. I had precisely 37 minutes for the printing part whilst two babies slept - only one was mine - and it was a good reminder of how quickly you can crank them out. 

Very satisfying to see them all hanging out to dry.

I can't decide whether or not to crop off the bits at the top, I like their rawness but am not sure my bank would. Although, I can't honestly see myself wasting these on the bank.