Printmaking - Patti Taylor

I became interested in printmaking whilst on CityLit’s Fine Art course and very soon became hooked. The smell of the ink took me back to childhood, when I would help my father, a journeyman printer, in his workroom.

A lot of my work, in various media, is around Spurn. I have collected everything onto this page.

I now have a small printing press at home, and whilst I am unable to etch, I can still work on drypoint, monoprint, cyanotype and collographs.

Intaglio includes etching and drypoint; relief is wood and linocuts; screenprints can be on paper or fabric – although fabric prints often fall under textiles. Monotypes include all single-type prints, where it is (or at least I find it) impossible to repeat a print: traditional monoprints and monotypes, cyanotypes and collographs.

I have experimented with so many printing methods I have sorted the prints into various categories. Click on the headings below to jump straight to any section. Enjoy!

Intaglio

Mind the Gap

Over the past three or four years I have been taking photographs of people … specific sorts of people, you understand, on the London Underground. I have taken care to disguise the identify of the subjects, and the result is this book of 20 prints … working title Man Spread.

The book has been shortlisted for the 2021 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition – and, again, I’m absolutely delighted! AND THIS YEAR … SELECTED!

I’ll post the individual images later.

Shell I: etching with chine collé, EV 25. This image was made from a photograph of my daughter just before she had a series of 25 radiotherapy treatments for a brain tumour. The tightness of the image shows how we both felt: constrained and rigid. There is a second series showing how we felt after the treatment.

**Spurn I** ; two colour etching with aquatint, sugar lift and spit bite; EV 2/20

Street S**t

Street S**t is a double-sided concertina book of etchings printed on either Fabriano or Somerset paper. Edition of five. The images come from a short journey of two parts: walking from CityLit to Holborn Station and from Dollis Hill Station to my home. I collected detritus en route and started to make comparisons – for example laughing gas capsules (H) and children’s dummies (DH); a used condom (H) and a burst balloon (DH). The tube roundels signal the start of progress; if you begin here and have the book, concertina-like, going away from you, the visible pages show objects from that station’s journey – view from the opposite end to see the other journey. Facing pages show paired objects from the respective journeys.

**Rupert and “The One**“; photo etching; AP/3

**The Sorider and the Sofa**; photocopy transfer etching; 1/5. A print made in response to a text message from my terrified daughter-in-law to my son

**Autumn spiders**; Each print EV 5; photocopy transfer etchings. Once I started with spiders I found it hard to stop.

**Spider 3**; photocopy transfer etching; 1/5

**Macroadenoma**; etchings with chine colle

Relief

**Hanging by a thread**; linocut with thread; 1/15

**Spurn lighthouse**; three colour woodcut; 1/5

Lithography

**Spurn Groynes II**; lithograph; 2/14. Two days to create this! Also printed on fabric.

Screenprinting

Monotype

Shell II: cyanotype with gold leaf and foil, EV 25. This edition was made using the shell that had held my daughter’s head still whilst she underwent 25 days of radiotherapy. They follow an edition of 25 etchings – the image for which is tight and constrained, how we both felt whilst she was undergoing treatment. This series shows the looseness of the tumour shrinking, hopefully to disappear.

**Journey of a brain tumour**; cyanotype; 1/5. Printed using my daughter’s radiotherapy shell

A monoprint taken from my body — A full-sized monotype; acrylic on paper. This has to be a favourite. I covered my front and sides with cheap acrylic paint – brown, with the view that if it stained me I’d look as though I’d mis-applied fake tan, rather than, say, a Smurf if I’d used blue. Then I plonked myself on a huge sheet of cartridge paper. Note to self: if I ever do it again, plan my route to the shower a little better.

**Hanging by a thread**; cyanotype and thread; EV15

Bedford Square; collograph. I was walking to get printing supplies and came across a tree which had grown right through the railings. Fascinating.