Sarah James

New Grange 4
Stone: Lithographic Tusche with scraping
4 runs
380mm x 280mm

It’s the beauty of the image on the stone which is so seductive, despite the inevitable frustrations and disappointments which dog the learning process, which drives one on – there are just so many things to get wrong!

A year spent in a Tenerife workshop wrestling with huge stones, idiosyncratic machinery and equipment (and cockroaches) was the turning point.  Eventually I was able to import my own materials, inks and rollers and begin to develop a ‘language’ of my own.

Previously working as technical assistant at Winchester School of Art Fine Art Printmaking department, with sole responsibility for 3 busy workshops, it was a question of juggling plates on sticks (not literally!) with a basic but superficial knowledge of all the printmaking processes, though my personal preference as painter inclined me towards lithography – however there was little opportunity to do more than making test plates for demonstration to students – increasingly though, I was finding the materials particularly conducive.  (But the invaluable experience of workshop practice has stood me in good stead, including the dreaded plate graining machine!)

Later during a fellowship at Seacourt Print Workshop, Northern Ireland, working on small stones (one of which I broke – ‘it must have been the frost’ they diplomatically said) I developed the ‘Newgrange’ series.