As part of our project, we are embarking on the exciting process of adapting and developing our large-scale collaborative works into smaller scale prints. We are very grateful to The Elmgrant Trust, who have kindly provided us with funding to pay for printmaking inks, papers and sundries to help support our printmaking developments and experiments – we’ve learnt a lot already and are really excited by the potential of the process and our resulting series of prints so far.
We have been amazingly supported and encouraged by Double Elephant Print Workshop who have lent us a small portable printing press, which has now resided in Sara’s studio for the past two and a half months while we have explored the various possibilities of layering and combining drypoint etched plates with painterly monoprint and stencilled print layers. We have endeavoured to retain the integrity of our collaborative layering process, whilst simplifying and down-sizing the image. Our aim has been to create each print as an individual one-off original, each one unique as a result of the subtle nuances of layering inks through our multi-layered process involving intaglio and relief printing methods.
Each print combines between 6-8 separate layers and we have really enjoyed experimenting with different types of inks and papers.
The first set of prints are finished and about to be mounted and framed; each print currently takes about a month to create, as each layer must dry completely before the paper can go through the press again – we learnt this fast!
A few of the first prints will be shown initially at Woodlands Castle, near Taunton on the evening of 18th March at the ‘Friends of SAW’ event there. This will give an early taster of things to come…..more prints will be included in our forthcoming exhibition at the A2 Gallery in Wells later this month. We are looking forward to working with the support of Double Elephant Print Workshop later this year, to create an exclusive series of limited edition prints……more to come about this later.
Flock Together 