Hello,

In the past few months I have created some new work with a different medium; print.

The first piece I made was by using a process called photo etching. The idea was to encapsulate the large charcoal drawing I made inside St. Anne’s Chapel into a smaller etching and make an edition of it. After going to a day’s training at Double Elephant Workshop in August 2012 I was able to put the drawing onto a plate and begin printing.

Photo-etching Plate

The blue colour is the light sensitive film which was exposed to UV and hardened by the sunlight. The black is the unexposed part which has now been inked up and is ready to be printed.

Etching of St Anne’s Chapel – 30x40cm –  4 of 20

I made twenty of these etchings with several different results as I used different coloured papers and thicknesses. This example is using a printing paper called Two Rivers.

A month later I went to a wood engraving day with Hilary Paynter at the Burton Art Gallery. It was a fantastic experience to learn a different way of print making with such quick results. After about half an hours work I was finished with this piece.

Seascape – Relief wood block – Black printer’s ink – 4x4cm – 2012

This technique is different from my first print because the ink is lying above raised lines rather than lying inside the lines. This meant I had to cut out the white space, and leave in the dark. This process is called relief printing.

During the day I was able to purchase some tools and wood so that I could make some new work in my studio. Just recently I have been on a few walks and decided that it would be good to try out the wood engraving with some sketches I made.

Dennington Hills – Wood Engraving – 4x4cm 2012

This experience has begun to make me realise how important it is to depict light and dark areas when print making by using gestural or repetitive lines.

Dartmoor – Wood Engraving – 9x14cm – 2012

As a process I prefer relief printing but I think there is a lot more to discover with etching which I would like to do in the future.

-Ed