The images on these website pages are of fine art prints. Although the term 'print' implies that a photographic process is involved, this is not the case. The techniques outlined below describe processes used by printmakers, not printers; this distinction is important, as many of my prints are as original as paintings, and not just 'carbon copies' as many people mistakenly believe.

My work normally incorporates a combination of etching and collagraph techniques.

The traditional etching process involves producing an image from a metal plate, usually zinc, copper or steel. The surface of the metal is first coated with a waxy layer ('resist' or 'ground') and then the image is applied by hand onto this surface. The 'drawing' process removes the resist to expose the metal below. So when the plate is immersed in an acidic solution, the drawing is permanently 'etched' or eaten into the otherwise flat metal surface to produce roughened areas, or grooves. Once the ground is washed off, the plate is covered with etching ink. Careful polishing of the surface of the plate leaves ink only in these grooves, as the ink clings to the roughened areas and not the polished surface. This ink is then transferred from metal to paper by the application of extreme pressure in an etching press.

A collagraph plate differs from an etching plate as texture is built up on the surface of the plate to form a relief, rather than extending below the surface level of the plate like the grooves on an etching plate. Any waterproof surface will do; I normally use varnished card or thick acetate, and create the image using materials that solidify to form durable 'edges' or texture on the base plate, such as thick acrylic paint, waterproof PVA or moulding paste. Once dry and sealed with varnish, the edges of the relief capture the ink as metal grooves would, which is again transferred onto paper via an etching press.

There are many different grounds, mark making techniques and plate preparations which can create different qualities of line, tone and texture on the metal's surface. The word 'aquatint' refers to a technique which creates differences in tone on the resulting print; a lightly aquatinted plate would hold relatively little black ink to produce soft grey tones, whereas a 'dark' aquatint would hold more ink, giving a deeper grey / black tone, resulting from a rougher metal surface. The term 'sugar lift' refers to a techique which uses a sugary solution that can be painted onto the plate in selective areas, before the plate is coated with the waxy resist. This solution later dissolves and lifts off in hot water, taking it's waxy coating with it, thus exposing the metal underneath for etching. This method is traditionally used for producing darker, clearer lines, but as with many etching techniques, can also be combined and adapted with other processes to create a variety of effects.

The colour prints that I produce are all slightly different, as I apply ink to the plate in much the same way as one would paint a canvas. So printmaking in this selective way allows for much variation in colour and distribution of ink across the paper; for this reason no two colour prints are the same. In the case of my black and white imagery, although I can still be selective with ink density, the finished print will obviously show less variation. However they are by no means simple copies; each print is individually hand produced, and there is a finite number of prints taken from each plate. This is partly restricted by the perishability of the metal plate's surface caused by successive runs though the printing press, but also by my wish to keep each image relatively original, and precious.