No one knows the name of the maternity nurse who helped with the delivery of Marie Curie or Esperanza Spaulding. You might grow up to be a genius, but the team that helped your mom give birth don’t have to be geniuses–they simply have to be pretty good at their craft. The same is becoming […]

Hi! I’m Beth (Bethan) a printmaker who found a love for linocut relief printing. I’m based in a little village in the middle of Derbyshire.  Describe your printmaking process. My printmaking process probably isn’t as traditional as others, I draw my designs digitally and transfer them to my lino block. For some, drawing my designs on my iPad might be seen as cheating, and that’s fine! It works well for me as I often don’t have a plan when I begin a design, and I make numerous changes throughout the drawing before transferring it to the block. I have a Woodzilla printing press which both me and my dodgy back adore! But I still finish most of my prints by hand, using my trusty candle lid as a barren. How and where did you learn to print? I’m an entirely self taught printmaker - is that the term you use for “kind of making it up as I go along?” I have always been a creative person, and in 2019 I fractured my spine and was left bedbound. To help with my struggling mental health while in bed I began painting and illustrating, it kept my mind busy and truly got me through such a difficult time (still does!). Then on a random trip to Hobbycraft, I saw an Essdee printmaking starter kit, and decided to give it a go. A few hours later my first, wobbly (and backwards) print came to life. Since then, my love for printmaking has just grown and grown and my process has expanded through lots of trial and error to find ways that work for me.  Why printmaking? I loved digital art (and I still do!) and put dozens of hours into drawings, but even after all of that time, just printing the pieces on my desktop printer didn’t feel overly rewarding. With relief printmaking, each print is a labour of love and the feeling you get knowing that the entire printing process was done with your own two hands just can’t be beaten. I find carving meditative, I adore the excitement of being close to finishing a piece knowing you can take the first proof print and see your hours of work come to life. Where do you work? At my home office/studio, it isn’t the most organised space because it’s one relatively small room packed with possessions from my different hobbies over the years. It’s just me and hundreds of plants in a (slightly) organised chaos.  Describe a typical day in your studio. My days always start with taking my dog, Max, for a walk across the fields. Once we get home and finish the small business admin I'll make a start on packaging orders. After that, it’s different each day! Some days I'll be printing for hours on end, others will be drawing or carving new designs. I really wish I could be the type of printmaker that will just carve for a couple of hours a day. But when I start a new design, I’ll spend 10+ hours carving because once I start, I struggle to stop. How long have you been printmaking? My first print was in January 2022, so it’s been 3 years of learning! What inspires you? Plants and nature are the main inspirations within my work, but more specifically, my love for houseplants. Over the years I’ve collected a couple of hundred different species from all over the world and met some incredible people along the way. I began my botanical garden lino series because I wanted to capture not only the beauty of the plants, their resilience, and the way they grow within the architecture of the beautiful glasshouses, but also the feeling of walking through them—the humid air and familiar sounds and smells—all of which I aim to capture in my prints. What is your favourite printmaking product? Pfeil tools and Caligo Safe Wash, hands down. You just can’t beat the quality of the Pfeil tools or the amount of detail you can bring to your block with them. Caligo Safe Wash speaks for itself, you’re a printmaker and somehow haven't used it yet, it will change your whole printmaking experience. What have you made that you are most proud of? It has to be my print of the Palm House at Kew Gardens, it was my first really detailed block because I'd finally got my hands on the Pfeil 11/0.5 and could actually carve tiny details. It isn’t my best work to date, but my designs before this had only taken a maximum of 8 hours to carve. This one took me 26 hours to carve so the feeling of rolling that first bit of ink was incredible. Where can we see your work? Where do you sell? My work is available on my website and my Etsy. You can also find some of my work at a few independent shops around Derbyshire. What will we be seeing from you next? If I'd written this a couple of months ago, I’d have said my absolute dream would be to have my botanical prints sold in one of the corresponding botanical gardens. But my work is now stocked at Birmingham Botanical Gardens! My next goal is to expand my series and have them stocked at more gardens! I also want to start using more colours in my prints, black will be my one true love but I'm really enjoying experimenting with more colour. Do you have any advice for other printmakers and creatives? Do the thing you’ve been wanting to try! As a creative you’re told to ‘stick to what you know’, but if I’d have done that I’d still be trying to convince myself to continue with my mediocre watercolour paintings. Being seen as a jack of all trades isn’t a bad thing, especially if it leads to you finding your passion as I did with printmaking. To see more from Beth, follow her on Instagram and TikTok

Plus: Media Literacy (gone) and Production (still here)

Freelancers looking to build a career have two good options: The lousy options are to insist that you don’t use AI, but to be slower, more expensive and not as good as the AI option. Or to do tasks that an AI assigns you. Hiring an AI to work for you and getting very good […]

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