Studio Prints at The New Art Gallery Walsall

Yesterday I visited Walsall Art Gallery. I especially wanted to see the small exhibit of prints produced at the Studio Prints workshop in London. Dorothea Wright and Marc Balakjian ran the workshop for 40 years until it's closure in 2011. They collaborated with many leading artists during that time, including Lucian Freud who has close connections with Walsall Art Gallery. Several of Freud's etchings were on display, such as 'The Painter's Garden' below.

 This close up shows the frenetic marks etched into the plate, as well as the areas of ink that were left on its surface. Of particular interest was a print by Paula Rego called 'Encampment', shown below. She used etching and aquatint techniques in this narrative scene.

I particularly like the strong contrasts achieved with this technique. The close up I photographed below shows the etched line combined with the tonal range of the aquatint.

Another print that caught my attention was by Stephen Conroy called 'Silence'. This was a drypoint print that again used strong contrasts to create a spectre like image of a young man. A dense network of marks have been made in areas of the plate - I suspect with a mezzotint rocker or a roulette tool.

I would like to experiment with these techniques to create images based on some of the panoramic photographs I have been taking.