Kent based print artist, Hannah Shepheard, has a love of printmaking going back nearly 20 years and spends her time creating art in her garden studio. Originally from Kent, Hannah studied at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, where a love of printmaking took hold. The smells, sounds, processes and community environment of the print studios quickly made it her favourite place to be, and motivated her to continue her studies with a Masters in the printmaking at Camberwell College of Arts in London soon after. These were two very different environments to live and study in, but both fuelled her desire to continue exploring the medium and continue producing work, now primarily in linocut.
Settling back in Kent after her studies, a few key themes and interests had stood the test of time, and have continued to feature throughout her works today. A love of pattern, the natural world, and an overarching theme of memories, with scenes and objects that provoke them, the ability of art to record and immortalise them, as well as exploring their fragmented nature, all have a place in Hannah’s work.
As well as creating her own body of work, Hannah also takes on a few private commissions each year, working with customers to create unique artworks recording memorable and significant places, buildings and holidays. However, she is probably most well known for her house portraits; “I love working on commissions as I love how they connect with my own obsession with recording and drawing on memories. The house portraits in particular are always lovely to work on. People commission them for several different reasons, but often want a keepsake of a family home, or perhaps their first home, and I am able to add in personal touches, as well as lean in to my own love of pattern where I can bring out botanical details in the garden, brickwork or windows.”
Working from home in her garden studio, Hannah’s work begins with observational drawings from life and photographs, with sketch books filled with studies and experiments and the development of ideas. More recently, she has started to use Photoshop to experiment with colour combinations and layers before beginning on multilayered prints. Whilst still allowing room for experimentation and final decisions in the studio, this means that there is less wasted ink and paper whilst narrowing down the colour choices.
Final drawings are transferred to block of lino, typically using Japanese vinyl or battleship grey, with finer details left to be decided during the carving process. A small scrap piece of lino is always at hand to test out techniques and practise ways to illustrate new details or textures before committing these marks to the final block. “I prefer not to print any proofs until the majority of the carving is finished, but instead I often take rubbings with a soft pencil to check the balance of light and dark or how a particular area is looking,” says the printmaker.
When it comes to printing, Hannah has a Hawthorn printing press in her studio, on which she can print up to A3 size pieces of Lino, as well as being suitable for intaglio printing. However, her plans for future work include branching out in to larger works which will most likely require printing by hand. Although this is physically demanding way of working, the possibilities for development and experimentation this will open up for her work makes this an exciting prospect to have on the horizon.
Hannah’s work features online under the name of Hannah And Her Press, with a new website coming soon to showcase and sell her work.
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