Working under the name Inkful Print Co, Louise McCabe’s print work focuses on place and the way we relate to our environment. She tells us; “I always want my work to be bold, playful and full of character as that is the kind of art I’m drawn to myself. Patterns, textures and typography all play their part in my work. I love work that sparks joy and that influences me when I’m creating my own work or taking on commissions.”
Louise is currently working on commissions including wedding stationery that relates to the wedding venues, and maps that play with perspective and scale. With a background in illustration, she is always looking for the story behind the print; “I want people to connect with narrative, wonder and imagine what’s going on beyond the image”.
Louise has also worked in education and teaching. On one side of her family, her grandfather was a commercial artist and his father a cartographer, and on the other side there were several teachers. Louise has followed both routes; art and education. She studied Illustration at university where she loved working with collage, mixed media, typography, and printmaking, but it was during her teaching career that lino printing became a passion. She began selling prints under the name Inkful Print Co when she was on her first maternity leave, and it has taken off from there.
Most of Louise’s works start from sketchbooks; “I especially love drawing around my local area in North Essex and in Suffolk where I grew up,” says the printmaker. However, not all of her work starts in this way as she also often draws directly onto the lino block, capturing the urgency and energy of the marks. “As I’m drawing I get a feeling for where the areas of contrast, pattern, texture will be,” describes Louise.
Something that she is currently developing in her work is the use of collage. Louise uses misprints, or sometimes printed elements that have been printed especially for the piece of work, to create new exciting images. Recently, she created a series of collages called Home in which she used a mixture of architectural styles and surprise elements such as animals, plants, and typography. Louise comments; “I loved the way the collages created stories – viewers are drawn in to find all the details and piece together the narrative.”
The process of collage is also helping the printmaker to develop her use of colour, allowing her to be bolder with her compositions, and making her more confident to inject pops of colour or create reduction prints. Louise states; “I have been increasingly working with collage during the planning stage, allowing me to experiment and play with colour, form and perspective in a composition. I love the surprise and unexpected joy you can get through moving elements around or tipping them by a few degrees – it adds energy and fun and that’s what I love.”
A lot of Louise’s work is inspired by a sense of place and the way we relate to the environment around us. As a huge fan of architecture, buildings of all styles feature in her prints, and maps are also a constant inspiration. Nature and natural elements are always woven into Louise’s illustrations, as well as pattern and typography. “I am so inspired by the way a special place can make us feel and want to encapsulate that feeling in a print,” says the artist.
Currently, Louise is working on a site map for a rural holiday accommodation which combines all of these elements. She used collage to create the composition, drawing, re-drawing, scaling areas up and down, cutting and sticking until she was happy. The carving process is due to begin and she can’t wait to get stuck in.
“This year has been a real year for growth in my printmaking: I am taking on larger commissions as well as focusing more time to my own art and illustrations; I am teaching my first linocut workshops later in the year as well as taking a short course myself to develop my own practice; I am excited to be continuing my series of North Essex village prints as well as starting on my ever-growing list of personal projects! I’m so excited for what this next year will bring.”
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