'It was a fantastic day with a fantastic teacher'

On Saturday 19^th June a group of eight local, and two enthusiastic artists from Lake Grace participated in a printmaking workshop in the Art room at Ravensthorpe District High School.  The day was run by visiting printmaker Paul Kovesi who kindly travelled from Perth to take us through a number of printmaking processes utilizing our etching press.

Paul began the day early by taking a couple of hours before everyone arrived to set up the room with a variety of papers, inks, etching plates and tools.  He also took the time to go through some boxes of old equipment collected from the Art Group years ago to check what could still be used and what needed to be discarded.

 

When the workshop began Paul then gave us a brief introduction to printmaking before demonstrating the etching process.  As this particular intaglio process takes some time and requires the use of acid to bite into the zinc plates to achieve different tones, it wasn’t one that we were able to do on the day.  Paul however ran us through this, with much emphasis on safety so that we could try it later if we wished.  He also brought a few sample prints to illustrates some of the techniques he spoke of.

 

Paul then demonstrated another dry point etching process using PVC plastic instead of zinc plates, so armed with some sharp tools and sandpaper we rolled up our sleeves and all had a go. We also later had another experiment with some Holbein etching card which created a different effect entirely.

In between us getting messy with the inks and helping ourselves to delicious cakes provided by a few participants (thank you!) Paul also demonstrated how to use the press for lino printing, a relief process and how to add colour to the prints using oil paint.

It was a fantastic day with a fantastic teacher.   Thanks very much to Paul for imparting a small part of his wealth of knowledge and experience of printmaking.  We certainly learned much about the process as well as papers, inks and lots of handy tips on how to get good results by improvising with more easily available materials!  It was also just a fantastic opportunity for us to meet an experienced artist and hear about his travels and work.  The Ravensthorpe District Art Group members plan to set the etching press up at the Dunnart Studio Gallery so that it can be well used.

 

Many thanks go to Paul Kovesi and wife Suzanne for coming down on the weekend to run this workshop, Mr Grifftihs at Ravensthorpe District High School for allowing us to use the art room on the day, the Ravensthorpe Regional Arts Council for helping to organize and fund the workshop and also to the Ravensthorpe District Art Group for also helping to organise and fund the day.  Thanks especially to those who attended, we hope you have caught the printmaking bug, and we look forward to those Christmas cards from Harry and Jack!