Art Teacher Bethan's Official Blog: It's all about the print

As some of you may have realised, I'm a bit of a print obsessive. My ideal day would be spent printmaking, a bit of lunch in the sunshine, more printmaking, and then a couple of shandies. Nothing pleases me more than different papers, ink, the turn of the printing press wheel, and the nervous excitement of pulling back the paper to see how the print has come out. Intaglio or relief; etched, screen-, lino-, or mono printed; it's all lovely.

The following printmakers and studios prove that it's not all historical...

Tugboat Print Workshop
The people at Tugboat Print produce some of the most exciting woodcuts I've ever seen. They're illustrative, full of pattern, colourful. technically brilliant, odd, and just generally beautiful to look at. You can get similar effects with linoprinting if you'd like to have a go.

Follow this to see the process for the image above.

Trefeglwys studio in Mid Wales is run by printmaker Andrew Baldwin who has worked solidly for the past 10 years to develop less toxic ways of etching. I first met him at Aberystywyth University where he was technician. Since then I have kept in contact and attended his workshops, hoping to return to KEC with acid etching techniques to be used in college.
His own work is amusing and imaginative; playing with social associations and humorously turning them on their heads.

Norman Ackroyd produces magnificent, atmospheric landscapes full of extremes in tone, contrast, texture and weather! He has explored a technique called aquatint which gives a watercolour or tonal effect, but in print.

Shropshire
1994 • 60 x 89cm •

Collographs are something we encourage our students to experiment with but rarely do we get people who really want to refine what they've done and explore the technique fully. Bonnie Murray is an artist who has really accomplished this; proving that scraps of wallpaper can create wonderful contrasts, producing form through intricate arrangements of textured surfaces.

I first met Luke Drozd on my Art Foundation course. He is an exciting illustrator and has worked in a variety of mediums, including screen printing, for many years. Recently he has been commissioned to do limited addition screen printed posters for Franz Ferdinand, Death Cab for Cutie, and The Black Keys. As an artist he has a stylised cartoon style which takes influence and inspiration from a wide variety of sources.