Swansea Print Workshop

I guess you never really retire from being a graphic designer, it is just that the work goes in a different direction. Printmaking is just a return to my roots, with hand and eye skills more important than keyboard and mouse.

Printmaking, and in particular, etching appeals to me because the process has a profound impact on the image. Every part of that process involves risk, from laying the ground, applying an aquatint, to drawing, biting the plate and finally the printing itself. Those processes influence and change the image, sometimes for the good, sometimes for the bad and the printmaker has to embrace both the happy accidents and the disasters. To quote Mick Jagger,

“You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometime you find
You get what you need”.