Learn more about the fascinating art and the artists behind the Low Wood Bay Print Trail.
1. Sarah Cemmick – Summer Swallows
Sarah Cemmick graduated in Environmental Illustration at the University of Sunderland in 1996. With help from the Prince’s Trust she began printmaking full time, which started a love affair with Lino.
Using traditional printing techniques, with the same set of tools she has used since her very first linocut, designs are carved into lino blocks. Prints are pulled using linseed oil ink which then allows some pieces being additionally tinted with watercolour to give added texture. Influenced by wildlife, be it fluffy, furry, or feathered, Sarah has continued to explore a variety of themes, the hare being a particular favourite.
Sarah now lives and works from her home 'The Pink House' in Cumbria alongside her artist husband David, two children, Rosie and Woody and her new muse, Bonzo the mini long-haired dachshund.
Visit Sarah’s website to find out more.
2. Alison Diamond – The Bathroom
Alison Diamond is a printmaker based in the North East of England, who draws inspiration from the world around her "My printmaking reflects my experiences, influenced by my North East background. I use the human figure in many works, individuals carrying out everyday activities."
"I aim to imply that the individuals depicted, experience a genuine quality of life that may not, on first impression, be apparent." she has a passion for drawing, perspective and pattern through the diversity of print media.
Visit Alison’s website to find out more.
3. Margaret Ashman – Mori and Hayashi
Margaret Ashman is an experienced printmaker specialising in photo etching. She trained at the Universities of Hertfordshire and Brighton and is also an Oxford graduate. She is currently a member of the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers and is Chairman of the Printmakers Council.
She creates ethereal photo etchings based on video stills and often combines different printmaking techniques to create the desired effect.
Visit Margaret’s website to find out more.
4. Anna Marrow – Mr Blue
Anna Marrow has been working as a printmaker, illustrator and image-maker for 20 years. She studied Fine Art in Bristol and then Communication Design at Central Saint Martins, specialising in illustration. She now draws at home and make prints at Spike Print Studio, Bristol, working with household paints, biros, fine liners, pencil crayons and screen print. Most of her prints begin as biro and ink drawings in my sketch book. They are developed into collages, and later become screen prints.
Anna makes surprising, sometimes humorous or alarming images by combining mundane objects and environments with exotic creatures and characters. Pin-pointing a specific moment in time, she is often drawn to objects from her childhood such as 70s televisions, radios and cars which all feature heavily in her work, as do urban and suburban landscapes.
Visit Anna’s website to find out more.
5 & 20. Gail Brodholt – The Motorway
Gail Brodholt is a leading painter and printmaker of contemporary urban landscapes. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers (RE). She was born in South London to immigrant parents, her father Norwegian and her mother from Trinidad.
“I suppose what I’m really interested in is those unconsidered and unnoticed places that people pass through. They are on their way to somewhere else, presumably more important – on the escalators, on the tube, train station platforms, motorways….
“I like the sense we all have that between here and there anything can happen. Although of course it almost always doesn’t. When you are travelling you are free from normal life with all the anticipation of an adventure ahead of you.”
Gail is both a painter and a printmaker and finds that working in one medium informs and enhances the other. She has published two lithographs in collaboration with the Curwen Studio. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers.
Visit Gail’s website to find out more.
6. In House Designs – Project 8.28
Marcus Walters is an award-winning designer and illustrator based in the UK. Since graduating from Central St Martin’s, London he has art-directed magazines co-founded an innovative design studio, New Future Graphic, launched fashion and homeware brands, and created arresting imagery for some of the biggest brands in the world.
Marcus is known for his dynamic graphic style and colourful optimism. His illustration work traverses many mediums from hand lettering, drawing, and paper cutting to sharp vector iconography. Marcus’s image-making is complemented by his art direction and design work which adheres to three basic principles: Creative, Enduring, and Precise.
Visit Marcus’ website to find out more.
7. Adele Burdon – Honey Fungus
Inspired by the luscious landscapes of the North, camper van explorations of Europe and the rugged mountainous scenery, Adele creates Monotype prints reflecting the essence of the landscape. She works from the Hearth at Horsley in Northumberland creating textural, atmospheric, abstract images.
Visit Adele’s website to find out more.
8. Sarah Ross Thompson – Still Remembered and Still Standing
Sarah has worked as a Fine Art Printmaker for over 25 years both in Dorset and Scotland and her ways of seeing and working have evolved over time. Initially a lot of her work was inspired by memories of journeys. Whilst this is still true, technology means that she no longer has to rely on her ageing memory but can gather source material on the iPad as she travels. This material is modified during the construction of her collage printing plates to create a piece which she hopes adds the 'spirit of the moment' as well as the physicality of the location. Sarah calls her way of working 'Drawing with Materials' and starts with the loosest of sketches before selecting a range of collage materials to give the piece form and depth. She scores into the mountboard substrate to add more illustrative detail. Artists often expand to fit their working space and moving to Scotland gave her a dedicated studio in the cottage next door to the main house. This studio space doubles as an ad hoc gallery/warehouse/hoarder’s heaven. Boxes of cardboard, lichen, porridge oats and fabric fill the cupboards along with gallons of glue and shellac – a printmaker's paradise.
Visit Sarah’s website to find out more.
9. Diana Croft – Orange and Blue, Thinking of Mary Quant, Pears, and Chinese Lanterns
Diana Croft is a printmaker, painter and stained glass artist based in Dorking, Surrey. She originally trained in illustration at Brighton University in the 1980’s and then worked in London, teaching printmaking and editioning complicated multi-plate etchings and collagraphs for the printmaker Brenda Hartill.
Diana moved to Dorking shortly before the turn of the millennium, returning to life in the country - she grew up in the seaside town of Whitstable, overlooking farmland. She draws much of her inspiration from the local environment of the Surrey Hills and the South Downs and has produced a series of stylised linocuts and collagraph prints based on these distinctive landscapes.
Visit Diana’s website to find out more.
10. Sarah Du Feu – Grid with Grey Bottle
Sarah Du Feu is a Yorkshire based artist and printmaker - her prints are explorations in form and colour and are built up in layers of ink, using stencils and lino, creating depth and texture. Although the prints have a deceptively simple and serene composition, they are complex, multi-staged works, often made up of 20 or 30 layers of ink, and sometimes taking days to complete.
Visit Sarah’s website to find out more.
11. Geraldine Walkington – Apen Glow 2, Moonlit Glacier, Argentiere Glaciers I, and Seracs Le Tour Glacier
Most of Geraldine’s work reflects the journeys she makes in the Lake District, Scotland, and the Alps. Her sketchbook and camera go everywhere, to record the changing patterns of the landscape, shadows, sunsets, seasons, and weather conditions. Much of the work she is exhibiting was taken from an unforgettable snowy walk along the river Arve in Chamonix, watching the alpenglow as it bloomed and faded on the Aiguilles.
Geraldine’s degree was in Fashion and Textiles, a passion she has had since a child; her mum taught her how to sew and Grandma taught her how to knit, and she is still doing both. 20 years of teaching art and fashion has given her the time to explore printmaking.
It is the unpredictability of each outcome that pushes her practice, and by mixing disciplines and techniques, it gives her the freedom to create very personal images.
Visit Geraldine’s website to find out more.
12. Mychael Barratt – The Surgeons
Mychael is a narrative printmaker and cartographer who has worked in virtually every print medium possible. His work combines a love of storytelling and art historical research with a genuine desire to create work that exemplifies his respect for the craftsmanship of printmaking. His homages are serious but always tinged with humour and affection for the source. Mychael is a past President of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers and his work is in a number of important collections including the British Library, the British Museum and HM The Queen.
Visit Mychael’s website to find out more.
14. Sally Spens
Printmaker Sally Spens studied Fine Art and Textiles at London’s Goldsmiths College, and her beautiful hand printed fabric designs are included in the Victoria & Albert Museum’s prestigious 20th Century Design Collection. Her delicate hand printed etchings, inspired by the patterns and forms of nature, have a rhythmic quality and show a designer’s eye for line and composition.
15. Katie Edwards
Katie Edwards produces conceptual illustrations for a wide range of clients from weekly editorials to large and prestigious ad campaigns. Screen prints focusing on conceptual ideas, symbolism and metaphors. The innovative juxtaposition of elements often result in a surreal, humorous or thought-provoking image. With the unique textures created with photographic and printmaking techniques.
16. Sarah Cemmick
Sarah Cemmick graduated in Environmental Illustration at the University of Sunderland in 1996. With help from the Prince's Trust she began printmaking full time, which started a love affair with Lino.
Using traditional printing techniques, with the same set of tools she has used since her very first linocut, designs are carved into lino blocks. Prints are pulled using linseed oil ink which then allows some pieces being additionally tinted with watercolour to give added texture.
Influenced by wildlife, be it fluffy, furry or feathered, Sarah has continued to explore a variety of themes, the hare being a particular favourite. The current collection of work is inspired by the seasons and the botanical elements to match each month through the year.
17. Laura Boswell
With a degree in Art History and Visual art from Aberystwyth University, Laura Boswell is a printmaker specialising in rural landscape. Having trained in Japan, she now works in classical Japanese water-based woodblock and reduction linocut. Her prints are never a specific depiction of geographical reality, more an evocation of place, weather or time of day. Her ambition is to offer space, escape and a sense of scale and season through her figurative landscape prints.
18. Ian Phillips
Aberystwyth based artist Ian Phillips is an internationally renowned printmaker known best for his stunning linocut prints of the Welsh landscape which he has been hand printing for over twenty years. Ian Phillips had an early fascination with all things Japanese which introduced him to the beauty and craftsmanship of Japanese prints. He specialises in consecutive series of prints taken from drawings done while walking long distance footpaths or exploring particular areas of scenic beauty. His reduction lino and woodcuts, by their very nature, are low in edition, as each phase can only be printed at one time only, making way for the next ‘layer’.
19. Mark Pearce
Mark Pearce is a professional printmaker and landscape artist living and working in the coastal village of Ravenglass in the beautiful Lake District. His home studio is situated on the shores of an estuary with stunning views of the surrounding fells and sea. These local landscapes provide much of the inspiration for his paintings and original linocut prints.