Continuing with my exploration of the grief and the sense of loss that I feel for the drastic change in world order, I did some printmaking during my low residency week at CSM in London and I continued with the theme of crows as inspired by the book ‘Grief is the thing with feathers’ by Max Porter.

METHOD

During the low residency at CSM in London, we had a lino printing workshop. I created an image with a feather and translated ‘Grief is the thing with feathers’ into Chinese. I then had to write out the mirror-image of the characters for the printmaking process:

We made prints in different colours and the blue one came out best for me:

I then attended another printmaking workshop where we made some etched prints. I did the etched drawing of the crow with my non-dominant hand, but did the mirror-image Chinese writing with my dominant hand as writing Chinese backwards required the utmost control!

First trial print to test the etching on the plate:

Then I tried the aquatint process to add tone to the print:

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REFLECTIONS

I have enjoyed both workshops very much and I mostly learnt that printmaking is not easy! The lino print was easier as I am familiar with the process so I mostly knew what I was doing. The fact that it was a simpler process also helped for a printmaking novice.

The etching process was much more complex for me. It was my first time. The tutor was very patient with all of us and very helpful. The etching of the plate was fine, but the aquatint process was much more involved and clearly required good experience to create the desired effect. I thoroughly enjoyed the workshop but I don’t think I will be rushing to make more prints because I like to make art intuitively and that requires a good understanding of the process and the materials. For me to achieve that and make prints intuitively would require a lot of time investment to make it part of my practice. So I think I will leave it for now and may be investigate printmaking after I finish my MA when I have more time. Printmaking is something that I have often thought about because of the good facilities at the print studio locally at Spike Island in Bristol and they run courses for beginners.

Out of the prints made, I was happier with the image of the lino print. The etched crow turned out too cute like a plush toy and not really reflective of the grief that I wanted to portray. Also, the Chinese writing mostly disappeared in the aquatint process. I should have thought more about how to ‘protect’ that part of the plate in the process. Something to bear in mind in the future.

LEARNING

I have often admired printmaking artists’ prints and wondered about how the process works. Now I have gained more of an insight into the complexity involved and I very much respect what they do! For me, since I am still developing my practice and I often feel self-conscious that I am wanting to include more different disciplines (e.g. photography and film making), it is therefore useful to know that I don’t want to pursue printmaking (not in the near future anyway) because of the time investment required and I don’t think the process ‘speaks to me’ yet due to my lack of experience. I am equally inexperienced in photography and film making, but I find it easier to get to grips with those processes.

Overall, they were very enjoyable workshops and I learnt a lot. I may still do some lino prints for fun and I may treat myself to a printmaking course one day at Spike Island.

NEXT STEPS

Make more work!