Along with Woman’s Weekly, I’m a great believer in hints and tips. I do love to experiment and I’m only too eager to share my findings with the world. Mostly my friends and family are not over interested in raising grain on wood, new papers or alum as a mordant, but there are a whole bunch of people out there who are. To that end I run a page on Facebook and if this sounds like a cheap ad then I’ll come clean, it is. Join me at Laura Boswell Printmaker and I’ll tell you all sorts of things which may come in handy with your printmaking.
Not all artists feel the same about this. My favourite horror story came from a weekend student who had asked a technical question about the printmaking she was learning and was told by her artist-teacher that she ‘couldn’t expect to be handed everything on a plate’. I had a chat about this with a class of eleven year olds recently and was told in no uncertain terms ‘if you tell all your secrets Miss, then other people will do it too’.
Fortunately for me there are fairly big odds stacked against me being replaced, whatever secrets I tell. I arrive at my images by a process which is a complete mystery to me. I have a feel for how I want things to look, nothing as clear as a mental picture, and I simply strike out in that direction. It’s not much of a road map and I’m fairly sure that other artists are way more interested in taking their own journey, not mine.
The other issue is sheer hard boring work. A marathon runner can tell you what shoes to wear, which drinks to use, how to interval train, but it’s you who has to get out there and suffer the running. Printmaking is a hard, long, precise slog with many, many mistakes and disappointments before you get to the point where ‘it looks easy’ and that takes serious passion. Add to that the work of being self employed: the pitches, the marketing, the paperwork, the logistics of exhibitions, the rejections, the teaching prep etc. Frankly not many people will be up for that. Most people are sensibly happy to print as an adjunct to normal life and if they are in it for the long haul then, like me, they need all the help they can get.
So, I’ll keep on being open and excited to share everything I do. Frankly if I help in making printmaker’s lives a bit easier then great, I’m proud to do that. I’ve been on the receiving end of enough brilliant advice in my time to be only too happy to pass some along.
Share your techniques so that someone can do something good with them. The great graphic designer Alan Fletcher reputedly once said that there’s nothing wrong with using other peoples’ ideas, it’s what you do with them that counts.
I remember, whilst studying for my degree, that people used to get quite upset by others ‘stealing’ their methods. But no matter how much people use each others methods, they can not replicate the inner thoughts and inspirations that the individual uses to make their art. I saw you demonstrating at Art in Action this weekend, and am so pleased that you share your techniques and inspire people to try new things. Thank you.
When I was at art school my main studio (jewellery) lecturer was very stingy with information – which is a bit ridiculous considering her role as our teacher! I think she was paranoid about people stealing her ideas – she didn’t show us any of her work until just before she left the job – and even then wouldn’t divulge any of her “secrets” about how she made them. As a teacher myself I’ve always been open about these things – I can’t see the point in being a teacher otherwise!