Exploring printing and getting back into drawing
It has been a while since I simply made some work. I have been busy planning and finalising my final submission for my degree and all the organising and ‘admin’ side of things has definitely taken over my time to sit and draw and ‘make’. I’ve been desperate to get back into my studio and experiment once again. However due to family changes, I have had to transform my studio into a bedroom and I’ve had to ‘dilute’ my art supplies. This has proven a little more difficult to set myself up and get into that creative head space but I have managed to do it and have just transformed my kitchen instead! It isn’t the biggest space or ideal to be able to just leave things out but it’s been really good to create again. It won’t be like this forever and I will be able to have a dedicated space one day soon!
Since finishing my degree, I have been desperate to draw, and as drawing goes this is fairly easy to do in terms of materials. However, I enjoy working big. There is such a strong physicality associated with my practice and I want to continue to feed this feeling of wanting to make large scale work - but again this is something that is a little restricted currently. Throughout my degree I was always interested in making and experimenting with printing. It often came up in my practice but I never really fully explored it - perhaps just not giving myself the time to do some practical work and having a focus on the admin side of things. However, now I have finished studying, I want to take this time to experiment with printing more and also continue my drawing.
From following a few accounts on social media, I found ‘gelli prints’. This was something I hadn’t explored before - I have mainly made monoprints and touched on etching but these are techniques I want to explore further. I bought myself a gelli plate and began experimenting using physical items e.g. flowers.
Gelli Prints. A Healy. 2025.
The more I made these prints, the more I felt disconnected to the practice. The prints weren’t giving me an exciting feeling - they just weren’t making me feel that I wanted to make more of them. I feel like I am always searching for ‘my style’ and I often jump from one way of working to another and perhaps don’t give it enough time to develop or feed into something else. I really liked the physicality of the printing and have thought about layering in different ways - layering the prints themselves, stitching them together, using more material to make prints from. I am definitely going to experiment further with the gelli prints - I think I just need to push the boundaries a bit further and not create too much restriction for myself. I am conscious of making a perfect print and I need to be brave to experiment! I liked the prints that had more detail and quality within them.
I have more experience with monoprinting but these prints are also not hitting the spot! I am keen to push the boundaries of this. It comes down to being ‘braver’! I have downloaded a free pack of how to be more free when making artwork and it relates to making work in landscapes and combining walking and being in nature. I am quite excited to begin this as a little project and see how much it helps me open up!
These are the few monoprints I have made. I also think it might not be exciting for me as I am working on a small scale and I get so much more out of working more physically, on a larger scale so this could be something I need to consider also.
Monoprints. A Healy. 2025
When I’ve had spare moments, I have also taken the opportunity to make a few drawings and I do find these drawings a lot more exciting than the prints. I think this is because of mark making. The drawings seem more tactile to me. The use of line and expression is more apparent in the drawings creating a more textural feel to the work. I am excited by line and I think this is something that is really missing in the prints - but I can add it in and experiment further, particularly with etchings and monoprints. Etchings might be a good next step to achieve the textural and line quality I am eager to capture.
Drawings. A Healy. 2025.
Continue making drawings and explore etchings - there’s so much I'm interested in and want to explore I think my mind jumps from one thing to the next - keep pushing with one thing to its limit and see what happens perhaps…
