Printmakers at Work

Jenny Bowden has been busy with her creative practice during the lock down, here’s what she has to say about her working process during this difficult time. 

“During Covid I have been struggling to keep a sense of personal creativity going as we are in lock down with my 96 year old Mum. I started keeping a ‘diary’  in  the form of Haiku or ‘moment poems’ with little sketches and ideas, things that seemed important in the midst of chaos.

I don’t have a press at home so I began to cut up old prints and collage them into ‘new landscapes’, all are empty of people and are mixes of different places I have been to or know well but they feel slightly eerie. They are places I have been yearning for.

During the lockdown, Frances Lewis has been busy making video tutorials using her phone and a homemade tripod constructed from empty Pringle tubes. In these videos she demonstrates her method of using screen filler and drawing fluid to make screen prints. You can view her work on her youtube channel Redkite Press

Angela Harpham has been busy working on a series of cut and etched lino blocks and has had this to say about her approach to developing this particular series of prints.

“I have been working on a number of lino blocks making make Japanese style images, and exploring the potential of crisp cut lines in combination with the softer marks achieved when etching lino using caustic soda.

To add more interest I have also been experimenting with different papers including my own handmade paper. I hope to be at a craft fair at the Millennium Gallery in November and have participated in a couple of online exhibitions too”.

The current ‘lockdown’ hasn’t meant the Sheffield Printmakers have stopped making prints, quite the reverse!

This quieter time has provided many with the opportunity to develop and produce new work, finish off outstanding projects and plan new ideas for the future.

The creative activities involved in producing prints are often varied, experimental and sometimes unconventional. There are many ways to make prints sometimes through simple processes or by the use and practice of  traditional skills.

Take a look!