I’m Alex Williams, a printmaker and illustrator based in Somerset. I mainly make linocut prints in bright and bold colours - I very rarely use any black ink! I also create illustrations, murals and bespoke window paintings and run printmaking workshops for adults and children. Describe your printmaking process. I generally start with sketches, drawn largely from life but I also love browsing antique and auction catalogues and the V&A website on the look out for interesting patterns and shapes. I use a range of lino techniques, often the ‘jigsaw’ method but also sometimes cutting multiple blocks or reduction so I think about what I want from the finished piece before deciding which process to use. I then transfer the image to the lino very simply with tracing paper often leaving out much of the detail and then just go for it. I like things to look perfect but not too perfect.   How and where did you learn to print? My degree was in fine art and we had an amazing print studio at the School of Art. I dabbled in lots of different printmaking methods from etching and drypoint to screen printing, but I don’t remember exploring much relief printing. I still use some of the Japanese woodcutting tools I got in my first year there about 20 years ago though, so we must have done some! A few years ago, I made some mini linocut prints to give as wedding favours for my sister’s wedding as we thought it would be a good way to make lots of mini artworks and from then on I’ve been hooked. I’ve taught myself a lot and am always learning and trying out different things. Why printmaking? I love the puzzle, the layering, the problem solving and the multi- step processes involved. The “no going back”-ness and the flatness of the colour you can create. I love that I can print an edition and then move onto the next thing. I also love how accessible it is - both for printmakers; requiring little to no specialist equipment - and also for people wanting some original art in their homes. Where do you work? My ‘studio’ is a corner of our spare room on the top floor where I’ve filled various surfaces with piles of paper, books and art supplies. It’s boiling in summer and freezing in the winter. Luckily for linoprinting you don’t need a lot of space. However, when people come to stay they might have to duck under a string of drying prints to get to the bed. My set up is very homemade - a big piece of mdf plonked on top of a chest of drawers is my printing table and a clothes airer donated by a neighbour with some bulldog clips on it serves as a drying rack - but it works for me. Describe a typical day in your studio. I’ve only recently been able to spend much time in my studio regularly as we have two small children. I try and plan beforehand what I want to get out of my available time as it’s sometimes only a couple of hours - be that planning new pieces, carving or spending a big chunk of time printing - that’s the one that’s harder to dip in and out of so I try to make sure I can do that on days when everyone is at school/nursery. How long have you been printmaking? I had been dipping in and out of making in different forms - sometimes making linocuts or screenprints - since I left university nearly twenty years ago.  Whilst working as a teacher and later for the NHS, I always had creative projects on the go but I’ve been consistently printmaking for about the last three years. Working from home after lockdown allowed me more time to explore my practice and begin to make it the main part of my life and last year I was able to go fully freelance which I’m really enjoying. What inspires you? My work is all about colour and pattern and I'm inspired by all sorts of things from the kitchen shelves to museum displays, auction catalogues, vintage fabrics and beautiful flowers. It has a hint of history or nostalgia about it but with colours maximised, and distillation of form and pattern. What is your favourite printmaking product? I really like using the Caligo Safewash inks, although I also use Schmincke water based inks a lot too as they dry so quickly. I love the range of printmaking papers from Handprinted - I get through a lot of the Kent paper. I also have a big Woodzilla-type press that I found in a junk shop for a fiver - they didn’t know what it was - I couldn’t believe my luck! Plus I have a lovely small Pfeil gouge which I wouldn’t be without now, I’d like the whole set! What have you made that you are most proud of? I’m most proud of sustaining my practice and having got to a stage where I’m making work that I like and am able to make a living from it. When I left university I didn’t really have any idea how to do that or the confidence to just go for it. It’s only now with the benefit of age that I care much less what people think and am more prepared to ask about things I’d like to do and create opportunities for myself. I’m also very proud of a really nice reduction print of a patterned vase I did - the registration was so perfect - it takes a trained eye to really appreciate that though! Where can we see your work? Where do you sell? I sell from my website and I stock my prints and cards in several galleries and nice shops championing handmade products. I’m also a regular at my local Independent Market in Taunton as they have a monthly Arts market, it’s always so lovely to meet the people who are buying your work. What will we be seeing from you next? There are so many ideas I’m desperate to get started on, but the next things I want to work on are a series of larger reduction prints of ceramic figurines - I find them so amusing. I’m also building up my workshop programme for the rest of the year as I’ve been enjoying teaching so much. Do you have any advice for other printmakers and creatives?  I think my main piece of advice is not to overthink things, care less about what other people think and just keep making/drawing for yourself. You will find the strands that link everything that you do and find your own unique style that brings you joy. I spent a long time thinking my work wasn’t good enough because it didn’t have an overt political ‘message’ or deep philosophical meaning, but I now realise that making colourful prints in the way that I do, often of things that may seem quite quotidian, appeals to people quite deeply, and brings a lot of joy and that’s just as valid. To see more of Alex, follow her on Instagram! Image credit Becky Tea Photography

Speedy Carve Blocks are delicious to cut and a joy to print. We have featured them many times in our blog, but this time we have created a process with a three-layered print. For a layered print like this, it's helpful to start with a drawing. Map out the colours to plan their placement. When using the three process colours, we will have magenta, cyan, yellow, orange, green and purple available. You could also have brown, where all 3 colours overlap. Scan the drawing and create a black and white line drawing, or trace it. We have reduced the scale of the drawing on Photoshop and fit three birds in a space to fit our Speedy Carve block. Print the design through a laser printer or photocopier (an inkjet printer won't work for this transfer method but you could use with carbon paper to transfer the design instead).  To transfer the design, place the laser printed design face down on the block. Use an iron for a couple of seconds on the back of the paper. This method only works on synthetic lino and blocks. Be careful not to iron for too long or the block can start to melt! It works very quickly.  Mark out your stamps - C, M and Y for cyan, magenta and yellow (or B, R, Y if you prefer.) Use your original drawing to help you choose the right areas to carve. The Cyan stamp (blue) - carve away any areas that you want to be yellow, magenta or orange. The Magenta stamp (red) - carve away any areas that you want to be blue, yellow or green. The Yellow stamp - carve any areas that you want to be blue, magenta or purple. This can be a bit confusing so carve slowly! You can also draw this out onto your block if that makes it easier.  When the design is carved, cut the stamps out with a scalpel. It's important that it's easy to see where to place these stamps, so try to keep the general shape of them the same. This one has the same main body and tail shape, so we can place them on top of one another as accurately as possible. We are printing using the Speedball Block Printing Inks in Process Colours. These are water-based inks so will dry quickly - perfect for multi-layer printing. Roll out a small amount of each colour and apply it to the block in light layers. Start with blue or magenta, as they will be the strongest colours and therefore more likely to cover up the yellow too much if applied on top. Stamp the block onto paper. Ink up the next colour block and stamp on top of the first layer, using the shape of the stamp to help line it up. The blue and magenta should overlap to make purple. Repeat with the yellow block.  For this project you will need: Speedy Carve Block Speedball Block Printing Ink in Process Yellow, Process Cyan and Process Magenta Laser printed photocopy x 3 (or carbon paper) Inking plate or tray Rollers like this one Paper to print onto Here are some links for other inspirational ways to use Speedy Carve:  Printing onto Fabric using Speedy Carve and Screen Printing Inks. Creating a portrait stamp. Using Extender to create graduated tones. The Endless Possibilities of a Square Block Repeat.

When we first heard the news that Tetra Pak cartons could be used for printmaking, we were excited to try it out. We started to collect all the cartons we had at home and got ready to put them to a new use in the studio. Here’s a little project to get started using Tetra Pak cartons to make intaglio printed drypoints and collagraphs! The insides of cartons vary a little. When we cut them open we found some to be foil coated and some plastic coated. We’ve tested both types to see if they both worked well. Thoroughly rinse out your carton and open it out flat. Wipe clean again and cut it into printing plate sized pieces. You could cut out each panel separately to avoid the creases or cut pieces that incorporate all the creases to add interest to your prints. We will be using the plain, inside surface of the carton. To transfer a drawing, draw your design onto tracing paper using a soft pencil, flip it and scribble on the back to transfer it to your plate. Don’t press too hard or you could dent the plate. Use an etching needle to score into the board. Here we are creating lines that will hold ink to be printed intaglio, like a drypoint plate. Use a scalpel to score the surface of the card. Gently peel off the top layer to reveal the rough card layer underneath. This rough layer will hold on to more ink and print a dark area, like a collagraph plate. This foil lined carton reveals brown card underneath. The white cartons reveal white card underneath. These plates feel a little less sturdy but can still be carved and scored into. Before inking your plate, soak your paper in a tray of water. We are using Snowdon – a 300gsm general purpose paper that prints beautifully when soaked. To print a plate using the intaglio method, we apply ink to the plate and then wipe excess off until the ink is only in the lines and areas we want to print. We’re using Akua inks –  soy based, water washable intaglio inks. Apply ink to the surface of the plate using a rag in dabbing motions or with a soft toothbrush. Using a piece of mount board or card, push the ink into the lines on the plate. Work the ink in several directions. This process will also help to remove any excess ink from the surface of the plate. Next, use a small wad of scrim in a twisting motion to further work the ink into the lines and clean the plate surface.   Pinch a piece of tissue between your forefinger and middle finger and, holding the tissue flat, rub the plate to polish the surface. To clean up the plate even further, use a piece of soft cloth. Be careful not to wipe any ink from areas that you want to print. Finally (I promise), use a cotton bud to shine up any areas that you want to print completely white. To print your plate, remove your paper from the water tray and blot off excess water with blotting paper or a clean cloth. The paper should feel damp but not too wet. Put your flat facing up on the bed of an etching press and your paper on top. Our final print has lovely texture from the crumples and folds of the carton. The cartons that were not foil lined printed beautifully too. To make your own Tetra Pak print you will need: A tetra pak carton Scissors Tracing paper Pencil Etching needle Scalpel Inking plate or glass slab Akua ink Toothbrush or rag for applying ink A piece of mount board or stiff card Scrim Tissue paper Rags for wiping Cotton buds for wiping Tray for dampening paper Paper to print on Etching press

Hello, I’m Polly, and I’m a linocut printmaker based in the Eden Valley in rural Cumbria. Much of my work features a character known as Bun-Head, a feisty woman who has come to hold a special place in the hearts of her many followers.  My prints are simplistic, using contrasting areas of predominantly black and white, with bold lines and angles, and the small figure of Bun-Head. I like to think that my work can be empowering, edgy, sensitive or plain quirky in the depiction of the ups and downs of daily life. Loafing around - the importance of doing fuck-all    Describe your printmaking process. Sometimes the sketch comes first, sometimes the title of the work comes before the sketch.  But I can see the image in my mind.  Often the ideas don’t appear at the most convenient moments.  Quite often my best ideas come in the middle of the night, then I’m up with a scratchy pencil trying to jot things down before I forget them.  Then I sketch.  Not always straight away.  I have numerous sketchbooks with pages that just have a word or two on them.  I flit backwards and forwards through the books gathering things up like a magpie and putting them together. I like it best when an idea works instantly, not too much rubbings out and redrawing.  Some never work at all.  Some I come back to months later.  Some are just me letting off steam and will never move out of that sketchbook and onto the lino.  Once I’m happy with my sketch I trace it in order to transfer it to the block.  Then I carve the block.  Some blocks are really simplistic and quick, but others – especially with lots of lettering take much longer – or a tangled scribble, who knew a scribble could be so tricky to carve?  Once I think I’m done with the lino cutting I often do a rubbing – just so I can get a rough idea of how it might look in print.  The printing, the inking is the really fun part. I mainly use black ink on white paper.  There are some coloured prints, sometimes I apply the colour after the black – with a finger or a mini stamp-block – some I use registration pins and might have a jigsaw of coloured blocks printed first with the black ink block pulling it all together when that’s printed on top of the colour.  I live in an old, cold stone house – it can take weeks for a layered colour print to dry fully in winter. I much prefer being a printmaker in summer when it’s warmer and things dry swiftly and the lino is warmed by the sun and so much easier to cut. But all said, I get so excited seeing the first print reveal, it’s like magic and you never quite know whether it will hit the spot or not. VPL - visible pencil lines - the artist wears a see-through skirt Still waving, not drowning How and where did you learn to print? I was given a second-hand John Bull printing set for my 6th birthday which lived in an old powdered milk tin in the playroom cupboard – this was the beginning of my obsession with printmaking and ink.  I loved those little rubbery letters and spent hours playing and experimenting.  Though, really, I guess I learnt to print properly on my Foundation Art course at Northbrook College in Horsham, West Sussex.  It was an old house converted to a college and there was a tiny weeny print room with just about enough space for 2 people.  I was nearly always one of those 2 people. The bonus was that the vending machine was right outside the print room door so Andrew (the other one-of-two printmakers) and I could always pounce of people who’d gone to buy a sneaky bar of chocolate. Then I went to Manchester when it was still the Polytechnic, though it morphed into Manchester Metropolitan University soon after I started.  It was the only university I’d visited where printmaking wasn’t hidden down 27 long corridors, with half a dusty old press on its own in a room looking all neglected.  And you didn’t have to spend your first year on painting or sculpture, I knew I wanted to print.  So I spent the best part of four years printing and that was me hooked. My lover says my tomatoes taste the best Why printmaking? Oo, that’s a tricky one.  I love drawing – I have endless sketch books full of ideas and mini drawings.  I don’t mind painting, unless it’s oils which are so slow to dry that it’s like a toddler doing a painting and you have to be careful it doesn’t go all brown and look like a giant poo!  But painting is still slow-ish, and I’ve always worked quickly, once I’ve carved that lino block the prints just reel off.  I can’t do 3D and that’s final – even kids’ birthday cakes, I have these amazing ideas and then it all goes hideously wrong and I remember why I’m a printmaker and not a baker, and I can’t even get clay to hit the wheel if I try pottery, let alone the centre of the wheel.  Why printmaking?  I love ALL of it.  I love every single bit of the process.  I love the sketching, the ideas. Transferring them to the block – working out how best to carve – what to leave, what to take away.  And you never know what it’s really going to look like until you pull a proof – and yes, there are occasions where I literally clap my hands and jump up and down with delight because it’s really worked!  It’s come out exactly how I saw it in my mind’s eye.  Why printmaking?  I can make more than one.  I love seeing those editions.  I love the multiples all hanging in rows in the print racks.  And I love the ink!  When I haven’t printed for a while I take the lid off the box my inks live in and I inhale.  I breathe it all in.  It’s amazing.  Words can’t describe how it makes me feel.  It’s the same when I’ve got a ceiling full of racks with prints drying – I walk into my studio and I smell that ink.  I adore the darkness I can get with that black.  Those great blocks of colour.  It’s so intense. And you can say so much just with a line, or that contrast between the black of the ink and the white of the paper.  It makes me buzz.  It literally sends tingles down my spine. sketch- Swallowed by The Overwhelm Flomp - snooze time where do you work? I work from a room at the back of my house.  It was the everything room.  It’s still the spare bedroom at times; guests get to sleep amongst my artwork. It was a bit of a playroom too – I’ve had prints accidentally shot out of drying racks by Nerf guns (but Nerf gun bullets also make really good Pfeil tool cover guards) The guinea pig spends her days with me in the winter when it’s too cold for her to be outside.  Sometimes I share with racks of drying laundry.  But now the kids are older and only one still lives at home full-time, it's really become my studio properly. Describe a typical day in your studio. There’s not really a typical day.  A lot of people romanticise being an artist, but there’s a lot more to it than just pulling prints –  there’s a lot of admin work, accounts, selling fairs, etc. -the duller bits of running a business.  But a ‘favourite’ day would be a creative day.  I tend to gather flocks of sketches and ideas in my sketchbooks and then have sessions of doing a certain part of the process – so I’ll cut a lot of blocks, 5 or so, for a few days, then I’ll spend a week printing.  I print until the drying racks are full.  And when the drying racks are full, I balance on furniture and tie bits of string to things so I can use clothes pegs to hang up even more prints.  I try to work ‘sensible’ working hours and, as a single parent of 3 children, this used to be dictated more by school runs or people needing to be fed.  But it’s very easy to get totally lost in my work, or just think I’ll finish cutting this block, or using up this ink, or pulling the remainder of this edition, that suddenly I’ve missed lunch or it’s far later than I thought, or it’s dark and I should probably be in bed.  Also working from home means you can stray back in to the studio when you’ve really only gone to check the back door was locked – I’ve been caught before, by the middle daughter, cutting lino at midnight after saying I was shattered ‘What exactly do you think you are doing, mother’ – talk about being ticked off by a teenager!  How long have you been printmaking?  I’ve been printmaking on and off since I was 19, or maybe 6.  I’ve been full-time printmaking for about 7 years now. Before that I had various breaks from printmaking, or art in general – some forced. The Story Of Bun-Head  What inspires you? My inspiration comes from life.  The good bits, the dull bits, the really gritty unpleasant bits.  Or things that just pop into my head.  So I never quite know what’s going to happen next.  And sometimes I’m surprised with what I come up with – a friend related my work to ‘taking a walk through Polly’s mind’ – which is what it really is.  But a lot is from me and my emotions.  Viewers don’t need to know my exact reason for making a print, my work can speak to people on an individual level.  My prints show how life has affected my art and, in turn, my art then affects the viewer’s life.  If people come away feeling some sort of emotion then my job is done.  Though there are always some who only see the quirky, comical side of my work.  There are some prints that are just this, like ‘The overwhelming joy of stripy tights’ but others tackle issues like mental health, domestic and sexual abuse, feminism and equality.  Basically they can be light and funny or an expression of the thick, dark and scary soup of life that laps at the feet of so many.  And surviving!  They are about getting through that stuff and coming out the other side. The Overwhelming Joy Of Stripy Tights What is your favourite printmaking product? Caligo safewash inks have revolutionised my printmaking from home.  When I was at university everything was solvent based, or the water-based products really didn’t hit the mark.  Now I can just put my rollers and blocks under the tap at the end of the day. Japanese vinyl is my favourite surface to work with – I can get such a crisp line and so much detail.  When it’s too cold to cut easily I sit on it for a while or, in the depths of winter, I alternate having a hot water bottle on my lap or on the block.  My really favourite printmaking product is my little Albion press.  It used to belong to my ancestors and was discovered in a garage in 2019.  My dad arranged to have it restored for me, but sadly he died of covid in June 2020 before he saw it in use in my studio. Where can we see your work? Where do you sell? I sell on Etsy - that’s my ticking over sales.  I also have galleries that stock my work on a regular basis – a fair few in Cumbria, as well as The Heart Gallery in Hebden Bridge, The Craft Centre at Leeds City Art Gallery.  I’m currently working on expanding this list across the country.  I’ve been invited to exhibit at The Great Print Exhibition at Rheged for the past six years, and for Great Print 9 they had a major feature on Bun-Head, and me!   This year I took part in Printfest in Ulverston for the first time and won The Founders’ Award.  I’ll be at Art in The Pen at Skipton in August 2025, and GNCCF in Manchester in October.  I have work in The Derby Print Open this year, which runs for the month of June. And I’ve just had a print accepted for the RA Summer Exhibition. What will we be seeing from you next?  Your guess is as good as mine!  There will always be Bun-Head, even when her hair is chopped off or in a ponytail.  Maybe a bit more colour?  Though black is still a colour I’m never retiring, that’s for sure! The second I turned off the lights all these thoughts came swishing around my head Do you have any advice for other printmakers and creatives? There is no wrong way.  You don’t need to follow the rules, or the crowd.  Keep experimenting.  Keep doing what you do.  Don’t compare yourself to anyone else, comparison is the thief of joy.  The second you stop experimenting and playing and pushing the boundaries, you lose yourself and your individuality. A fork in the road Whore skin - damn, woman, put that ankle away To see more of Polly, follow her on Instagram, Facebook and her Website!