Printmaker

Those of you who have been following me a long time will know that my minor at art school was printmaking. It seems I was destined for it as even my high school collographs and lino cuts were lovely. Perhaps I had a bit of a graphic design element that came out. When I was at the Australian University Art School interviews, I was offered a place in the printmaking department but not the drawing. Hmmmm… something was being said to me then too.

Back at The City Art Institute at Paddington I loved etching, though I didn’t get on well with my teacher. He was a bit do this, do that, in a dominating and way to uncaring maner for me. So it was in the lithography department I found myself for many many hours drawing on limestone blocks and using a printing method that relies on the fact that water and oil don’t mix.

Lithographs are so beautiful. It is such a shame the process is incredibly toxic. I lost one of my teachers, during our term with her to cancer. They suggested it was because she had spent her life working in lithography. She was so lovely and way to young to depart this world. Apparently they have replaced the toxic chemicals these days.

Lithography is an incredibly intense and physical printing method. Those stones were six inches thick and weighed so much. When you first got yours the first job is to grind the old print off by hand turning a fly wheel in a huge sink with grit. Working your way from course to fine. Keeping the stone parallel as well.

When it was ready, you could draw or paint on it with inks, that were basically grease. Touché is what it’s called. You could get pencils, or sticks that behaved like the wax crowns we used at school. It came in ink too. You could draw straight with a pen nib or a feather. You could water it down in distilled water too, adding gorgeous washes onto the stone. Just beautiful. The most gorgeous of printmaking methods in my opinion. So so different from etching.

Working on a stone is very much about working in layers. Adding and adding. Sometimes taking away. Each layer adding something new and different. Sometimes reinforcing elements or reducing or balancing. I love adding textures and filling backgrounds that balance with the white paper.

These photographs are my modern day equivalent. Created in layers. Slowly building up each layer. Eight photographs all on top of each other. No fancy blend modes in camera or in photoshop. These are just high resolution photographs, where eight photographs are all stacked on top of each other. I set a one second delay between each of the eight. And start to work in a rhythm.

I strive to make them look like my youth as an artist printmaker. Focusing on one of my favourite subjects, trees. Building up in layers the artwork. I have been working on this series for a few years now. And I am finally feeling like it’s getting somewhere. Rather than a few lucky snaps. The first few were just two exposures. Now it seems more is in order.

These were all taken on the last few days of the Leura Retreat when the mist came out and I put my full spectrum camera away. It likes a bit of sun it seems. Ahh now I can work happily in all lighting conditions.

Touché Trees. Photographs and text copyright © Len Metcalf 2021