Making monoprints in charcoal
Over the last year or so I’ve been using my large temporary studio in Edinburgh (provided by Outer Spaces Scotland) to research and develop methods of using charcoal with printmaking techniques.
I’ve been combining my established charcoal drawing language with gel plate, monotype, drypoint and collagraph printmaking on an experimental quest to expand my mark making and expressive drawing vocabulary.
Why printmaking? Why not just draw?
It’s a fair question to ask of an artist like me for whom drawing is central to their practice.
I wanted to explore how my drawings could be transformed through printmaking processes, creating something new, something surprising. Anyone who has ever tried it will know the excitement of revealing a print, not knowing if it will be a triumph or disaster, or more usually somewhere in between.
Having less control over the image making process can be an advantage in the studio. It opens up space for happy accidents, loosens attachments to predictable outcomes and sparks a flow of ideas and challenges which is very refreshing for your practice.
The speed of production in monoprinting also helps to get the creative flow going – it’s the reason I began when I first got my Big Studio in 2024. It was only ever meant to be a warm up exercise, a way to begin in a new space. I’ve found it to be too compelling to stop however, and have produced a lot of prints and learned a huge amount.
I’ve had time now to focus that learning onto one subject and make a series of works about ancient alders and their association with water. Wood and water isn’t a new theme for me (see my Rivers of Oak), but I’m loving how this novel cocktail of drawing and printmaking as given me a whole new range of expressive possibilities.
Workshops
If you are interested in learning more about the technique, I will be running more in person workshops in Edinburgh and Derbyshire this year, and am planning to create an online version in the autumn. Sign up to my Studio Newsletter to be first to hear about these.