Printmaking process
Lynne Roebuck explains in her own words how she makes her original prints. This is the second stage of producing the fine art print, after deciding to make art, choosing landscape as a subject and settling on an image for a print has all been done.
Printmaking technique
Once satisfied with the composition and confident I can produce an original print, I cut the first plate. The fine art print could be said to develop "a-life-of-it's-own" now, as I examine and adjust what I do after each step, while constantly referring back to my original intention or idea. Contrary to the appearance of my relief prints, there is much experimentation during the printmaking process. After each plate (colour) is printed, a review takes place and often the subsequent plates develop a character that was not planned.
Lino blocks in development for a series of original prints.
I generally use several plates, or blocks, to create each original print – though I am experimenting with the 'reduction cut' method too. 'Reduction cut' involves only one plate which is cut away a little more after each application of ink (My first reduction cut). I currently find using a completely fresh block for each ink a more creatively open process and foresee I will continue with multiple plate relief printmaking, though there are distinct challenges to working this way. Some of my prints use a combination of reduction cut and separate plates and I suspect I will do this often. Of course, like most artists, I'm constantly testing my own boundaries and the way I produce finished work.
Relief print being pulled from the inked plate - 'Flamborough Lighthouse' landscape print.
I think of myself as a 'fine artist' first, a 'fine artist-printmaker',
with the development of a creative image my priority. I am
not a traditional purist, focussed on a strict established routine
for making prints, where all experimentation is removed once
printing is underway. While I admire, study and draw
upon the rich, long history of printmaking we have in the UK
particularly, I seek to create images with character, that are
first and foremost: 'a work of art'.
Detail of a typical rough sketch for a print using pencil and charcoal. it shows old workings on the North York Moors – part of the Yorkshire landscape that inspires my work.