Drypoint Workshop

22 November 2019

This one-day workshop offers participants an opportunity to learn the exciting skill of drypoint, a direct and safe method of making repeatable intaglio printing plates.

Friday 22nd November 2019

10.00 – 16.00

Cost: £45 (pre-booking is essential)

This price is subsidised

Number of places: 10

Tutor: Hester Cox

Venue: The Folly, (The Parlour Room),

Settle BD24 9EY

About the course

This one-day workshop offers participants an opportunity to learn the exciting skill of drypoint, a direct and safe method of making repeatable intaglio printing plates. Following comprehensive examples, demonstrations and instructions, you will develop your own design inspired by the diverse natural history of Ingleborough. You will then scratch this into a plastic drypoint plate ready for inking, wiping & printing on a portable etching press. At the end of the day you will go home with a number of beautiful prints in black and white and colour. This workshop is suitable for beginners or artists wanting to try a new medium.

This course is part of Stories in Stone, a scheme of conservation and community projects concentrated on the Ingleborough area. The scheme was developed by the Ingleborough Dales Landscape Partnership, led by Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust, and supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

About the tutor

Hester has a BA(hons) in Illustration and is based in Horton-in-Ribblesdale. She is a member of various groups including Leeds Fine Artists, Printmakers Circle, Northern Print, Craven Arts and Ålgården Studios in Sweden. As a keen fellrunner, Hester’s work is most often inspired by her experience of the natural landscape & she exhibits her prints across the UK. In 2015 she was one of ten artists selected to take part in Mirror Images, an international printmaking exhibition, which took place simultaneously in North Yorkshire, Scotland, Finland and Sweden in 2015. For the 2017 Grassington Festival, she created a large-scale print installation inspired by the upland hay meadows and exhibited in a field barn. Throughout 2019/20 she is working with the Dales Countryside Museum reprinting the wood engravings of Marie Hartley and developing a new body of work inspired by the Yorkshire Dales National Park. This will be exhibited at the museum in Summer 2020.

Course organiser

Debbie Boswell, Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust, 015242 51002, info@storiesinstone.org.uk.

Equipment and requirements

It is recommended that you bring:

• Sketching materials such as pencils and paper
• Any existing sketchbooks or photographs if of the local area

Lunch is provided as part of the course cost. Please let us know of any medical conditions and dietary requirements you have and ensure you bring your medication with you.

Timetable (10.00 to 16:00)

Registration/ Arrival – 09:45 – 10:00

• Introductions and demonstration: Hester will introduce herself and her work and then explain what a drypoint is before demonstrating how to make marks on a drypoint plate to create line, tone and expression. She will then print the sample created to demonstrate the inking and wiping process.
• Putting into practice the techniques learned. You will make a small sampler drypoint plate to get used to the materials and explore the possibilities of the mark-making. Hester will the guide you through the printing process so that you have a print from your test-plate.
• Taking inspiration from the natural history of Ingleborough, Hester will give one-to-one guidance in how to develop your ideas into designs suitable for a more advanced drypoint plate. You will then spend the morning designing and scratching your plate using some of the techniques that you have learned.
• Lunch – 13.00 – 13.45
• Finishing and Printing your plates: Participants will have the opportunity to finish their drypoint plates before a further printing demonstration by Hester which will introduce them to using colour. They will then spend the rest of the afternoon printing from their plates in both monochrome and colour.

Arts & Crafts, Course