About Me.
History
A chance encounter with a small book of ‘Hiroshiges 53 stages of the Tokaido’ woodcuts, whilst studying Illustration at Leicester Polytechnic, seduced me into the world of relief print from which I never escaped. I've been trying to catch the delicate sensibilities of seasonal weather and the dramatic natural compositions of Japanese prints ever since.
In 2001 I moved to Wales to concentrate on landscape printmaking. In 2012 with the help of the Arts Council Wales, I had an amazingly inspirational seven week residency at the Djumbunji Print studio in Cairns, Australia.
I was also a frequent demonstrator at Art in Action, Oxford where I met Merlyn Chesterman, a chance meeting which lead to the exciting group collaboration of Pine Feroda and the production of very large scale woodcut prints.
The Pine Feroda collaboration took me all the way to China with a fascinating trip to The Purple Bamboo studio at the Academy of Arts in Hangzhou where we attempted to learn the art of Chinese water woodcut with Professor Wang Chao.
More recently on one of our last Pine sessions we invited printmaker Wuon Gean Ho to join us. From this meeting developed the experimental process we have called Tabi Hanga. This merged rather wonderfully with processes I had previously learnt in China, is currently the focus of my practice and is very, very exciting.
Method
My printing process today still starts with a walk and a sketchbook as it’s always done. Following lonely trails over empty hills, down twisting forests tracks, or along cliff side paths looking for complete compositions full of pattern, colour and texture. Catching the subtleties of weather and the natural drama of the landscape. These drawings are then taken back to the studio, enlarged and traced with brush and ink onto a sheet of Japanese tissue paper. This tissue is then stuck, face down, onto the block with rice paste glue and cut with a Hangito. Once cut away this block becomes the line 'keyblock' which its offset onto a number of other blocks for the different areas of the image.
This is when the process becomes all about pattern. The print may begin as a simple scribble in a sketchbook but as soon as you start on the blocks, the process becomes about gouging and cutting marks as well as, more recently with Tabi Hanga, using the organic marks and grain within the woodblock itself. These marks then help form a picture through creating pattern, texture and decoration.