Studio blog: drypoint printmaking

I had a fantastic day at PrintFest in Ulverston on Saturday, where I attended two workshops taught by Alex Jakob-Whitworth.

The morning workshop was a drypoint workshop where I worked on a scene local to Ulverston, a view looking towards Hoad Hill from Canal Foot.

I have done drypoint before, but I joined the workshop as I always think it’s interesting to get other artists’ views on processes. Drypoint is an intaglio printmaking method where you scratch your design into a surface, in this case plastic plates, but it could be another surface like metal or plexiglass.

The scratching process creates a burr on either side of the incised lines, which holds ink and prints as soft, velvety lines. I really enjoyed the workshop and can see lots of possibilities to add more tone and texture by manipulating the ink on the drypoint plate.

I had time to make two prints on the workshop, and you can see from the images above, that different effects can be created according to how the ink is applied and removed from the printing plate.

I’m not where I want to be with this print yet, there is more detail to be added, but I can experiment more in the studio and see what I can come up with.