Prints

go forth & multiply


Gamut schmamut complications of reproducing my drawings


Test Dept. colour notes from a muppet in the laboratory


Methodology with tips and guidance from my journals


Outcomes a gallery of the editioned prints made so far

/ gamut /

Gamut Schmamut

Faced with a growing pile of sketchbooks full of drawings, I thought I would try reproducing them for sale. It got complicated very quickly.
The drawings are done in loud pure coloured felt pens which are then scanned or photographed in RGB. When the scans are printed digitally they are transposed again into process CMYK and the colours most affected by this change are the blues, greens, yellows and oranges. Yeah, thanks for that.
Now if I wasn’t such a perfectionist then I wouldn’t give a damn and would just bang them out at KallKwik and nobody would notice. No one except me that is.
A lecturer I was working with at Farnham suggested using the photopolymer intaglio method which is a modern version of the traditional etching process that uses a metal plate with a layer of light-sensitive polymer on it less than a millimetre thick. A bitmapped image printed onto acetate can be put on top of the plate and then exposed under UV light. The exposed parts (everything but the image) is cooked in the UV light and the image parts then wash out and leave your image etched into the surface.

On a rare day off from teaching I enrolled on a one day course at The London Print Studio where I was taught the process under the marvellous tutelage of printmaker and technician Valentina Biga. My coincidental knowledge of making bitmapped images has been invaluable and using the photopolymer process is perfect for my drawings.

I would travel on the tube from Higham’s Park to Notting Hill with everything I needed packed into my bicycle pannier. The kit contains:

1.  Tissue paper
2.  Clean scrim
3.  A5 Photopolymer plate
4.  Dirty scrim
5.  Ink

6.  Clean soft cloth
7.  Squeegee for applying ink
8.  Instructions & notes
9.  Paper

/ methodologies /

Harry F. Rochat

RochatTwo.P1090380

The linear patterns that occurred when taking a single screen grab of video footage from an old-school tape camera were works of art in their own right. I used the technique several times and the results for this Hawaiian shirt feature were some of my favourites.

“You can’t be going through all that, it takes ages“
Norman Ackroyd

There isn’t much documentation of the photopolymer process online or off, but a bit of Youtube trawling led me to a video of the master printmaker Norman Ackroyd at work inking up multiple etching plates with great speed and efficiency. He used a radiator painting roller to apply ink onto his plates instead of a bit of rubber squeegee which was a beautiful discovery saving me hours of work. He also taught me not to be so precious about cleaning the excess ink off your plates with multiple grades of scrim. Ackroyd uses old bath towels, one filthy and one slightly cleaner.

/ test dept. /

EatYaGreens.

After learning the process of making monochrome photopolymer prints I thought it was time to start experimenting with the coloured drawings that I had wanted to reproduce initially. Google ‘colour photopolymer prints’ and the results will be mainly monochrome. Now most people would just not bother and get on with making more black & white prints, but not me.
This is just a sample of the many hours I have spent trying to replicate the colours of my felt pens. Most inks come in palettes that are the same as the pens and therefore theoretically should match them straight out of the tube. If only it were that simple, the reality of matching the pen colours involves adding ink extenders, whites and linseed oil.

/ outcomes /

Bon à Tirer

These are examples from the editions of prints that I have made from the drawings so far using the photopolymer intaglio process. Most examples use an A5 polymer plate on 26 x 35 cm Hahnemule or Fabriano 300gsm paper. If you would like a print check the shop for availability.

beet field (two colour) a5 print on 26 x 35cm hahnemule paper
two coloured beetfield print
pakefield oddfellows a5 print on 26 x 35cm hahnemule paper
oddfellows pub pakefield
winch & wave print
winch & wave pakefield beach
flixton train print
on the norwich to lowestoft train at flixton
hackney marsh print
across the hackney marshes on the chingford to liv. st.
dunwich treefall print
dunwich heath treefall
broken oak print
broken oak epping

Herringfleet Mill

Back when I was a kid before I discovered punk rock, the family drove to this wonderful place a lot. I would chase grasshoppers and throw flea darts at my brother, dad birdwatched across the wetlands through his U-boat binoculars and mum would sit down and rest after carrying the picnic all the way from the car through the woods, over stiles and down to the riverside on her own. There was usually a whole roast chicken on a plate wrapped in tin foil and we all had our own plates and cutlery too.

HerringfleetWindmill

Snape Maltings

The fact that a world famous homosexual composer of opera came from my home town frequently gives me pleasure and optimism. Like The Borough’s Aldeburgh fisherman Peter Grimes, Benjamin Britten also sought solace from all the wagging tongues and pointed fingers.
In 1966 he found it just up the river Alde at Snape in a disused maltings complex that within a year he had expensively converted into a purpose-built concert hall in which he and his lover, singer Peter Peers, could hang out in privacy whilst rehearsing, developing and performing new works. The hugely popular Aldeburgh festival has been held here since its completion in 1967.

SnapeMaltingsNewScan