About
Somerset Printmakers was formed in 1998 by seventeen professional artists who live and work in Somerset. We each have our own studio and our aims are to promote our work together, to reach a wider audience and to show the best of printmaking from Somerset.
During the past eight years, as a group, we have exhibited at Impact at Spike Island in Bristol, the Contemporary Print Show at the Barbican Centre London, the International Print Fairs in Bremen and Hamburg Germany, the Fresh Art Fair in London and numerous Galleries throughout the west country.
We are always looking for new opportunities to exhibit and sell our original limited edition prints.
An Original Print
Is a print produced by the artist or in collaboration with the artist, in a variety of ways, including
Intaglio (etching)
Where a metal plate is corroded or etched using acid or salt, the resulting etched lines, tones and textures being inked up and printed onto paper using the heavy pressure of an etching press;
Photo Etching or Gravure
Where the image is transferred photographically onto a metal plate to be dealt with as an etching;
Relief Printing (usually woodcut or linocut)
Where a piece of wood or lino is cut away leaving the areas to be printed uncut, which are then inked up with a roller and printed, either by hand or in a press;
Collagraph
Which is a kind of half way house between etching and relief printing: the base or plate has carborundum or pumice, paper, card, or anything with a texture glued to it, and is then inked as for intaglio, and/or rolled up with ink as for relief printing, and printed through an etching press;
Monoprint
Where a design is painted onto a flat surface such as card, metal or plastic, and then printed onto paper as a one-off, either by hand or through a press;
Drypoint
Being a plate, either metal or plastic, which is scratched and textured with needles and abrasives, and then printed as for intaglio;
Screenprint
Which differs from all of the above as it doesn’t require pressing: instead a rubber strip or squeegee squeezes ink onto paper through a mesh that has been prepared with stencils or photographically generated images;
Screen Monoprint
Which is a blend of screenprinting and monoprinting: each image is repainted on the screen to provide images which are similar, but not identical, to each other;
Lithography
Uses stone or metal as a base and the principle of oil and water never mixing to produce images which are printed through a lithographic press.
An Edition
Is a run of prints which the artist limits to a chosen number: no further prints may be produced other than a small amount of trial proofs such as those for the artist (artists’ proofs) and the printer (printers’ proofs). So the first print of a run of 20 is numbered as 1/20, followed by 2/20, and so on.
Hilary Adair | Bronwen Bradshaw | Laura Dickson | Pennie Elfick | Susan Gradwell | Jenny Graham | Sue Lowe |Julia Manning | Rosalind Marchant | Tony Martin | Jane Mowat | Angela Naunton Davies | Vera Sheaf | Jacy Wall | Judy Willoughby | Fiona Winning
Contact: pennieelfick@aol.com