How It’s Done

New projects can start in any number of ways, from being commissioned to make personal stories, collaborations with galleries, or simply being swept away with a new folk tale or historic event. There is no fixed way of making art, but if I am making a story into a fine art print, then I usually pass through three separate stages.

Reading. Drawing. Working it Out.

I start with a story. Then, after doing some research into the history and symbolism of the tale, I land up with a pile of scrap paper filled with scribbled notes or and sketches. Once I’m settled on an idea, I get out the cotton paper, crow pens, brushes and bottle of ink, take a deep breath and settle into composing a new work.

If I’m working on personal projects, I often just draw with no prep work; no pencil underlay, just ink on paper. This style of work has a certainly unconscious honesty about it which is hard to replicate. But, if I am working on a commission then I will often use light box techniques adopted by artists such as the fabulous Albert Uderzo. This technique allows the artist to compose different parts of the image separately, on different sheets of transparent paper, and then combine them as a final composition in a new ink drawing. It is a very time consuming process, but it gives an accuracy that is sometimes essential to story composition.

The Whole Printing By Hand Thing

Once a composition is complete as an ink drawing, it must then be transferred to a fine mesh for screen printing (serigraphy). A mesh is made up of many thousands of very fine threads stretched horizontally and vertically on a frame, making holes too fine for the eye to see.

In a darkroom environment, the printing mesh is covered with a layer of photographic emulsion and then put in a drying cabinet until the emulsion has dried. The original drawing (if made on animation paper), or a digital scan printed on a transparent substrate, is then placed on a UV light exposure unit, and the dried mesh is placed on top of it and exposed to UV light. Finding the right exposure time can be a tricky business, and the exact exposure time will differ from image to image.

Similar to the old ways of producing a photograph in a darkroom, the photograph emulsion on the mesh is light sensitive and will harden when exposed to light. The theory is that, if the drawing has been made from a material which will not allow light to pass through it, then the drawing will stop light rays hitting the photographic emulsion. The areas covered by the drawing will therefore still be soft and can be washed away by water (see photo opposite).

Once the mesh has been washed, what you have is a very fine detail stencil. The mesh is then attached to a printing table, which clamps the mesh, and allows paper to be placed just underneath. The mesh is then flooded with ink, which is transfered to the paper below by the artist who presses down on the mesh with a rubber blade (squeegee) and pulls it across. It’s a simple theory, but a little more tricky in real life.

As the artist is effectively dealing with a stencil, only one colour can be placed on at a time. This means that for every colour, or shade, in the picture a new mesh is needed. The final colour image is usually made up of several different meshes and these need to be in register with each other.

As the stencil process makes direct shading impossible (as ink either covers the paper or it does not), shading is therefore built up through a myriad of different methods such as half tone, printing multiple layers of transparent colour, or by drawing with materials that are not UV resistant.

Various Versions of Colouring A Print By Hand

Once printed, my art works are hand coloured through the application of water colour, inks or other fine art methods. This gives a different level of artistry to the finished work, which means that each print is unique and has been individually considered by the artist.

Often this leads to the creation of artist proofs, which are unique pieces which have a different colour to the final set of limited edition prints. My printing is deliberately kept to a very small number so that hand colouring remains part of the artist process.