Meet The Maker: Ian Phillips
Hi, I’m Ian Phillips, a printmaker based in Mid Wales. I’m originally from Leicestershire and studied illustration at Leicester Polytechnic. After graduation I attempted the life of a freelance Illustrator in London, but quite quickly, well after a few years, realised it wasn’t right me for me. Or more accurately I wasn’t right for it. I then tried a range of occupations from Postman to Pub landlord until the turn of the millennium encouraged fresh starts. So I moved to Machynlleth in Wales. There I re-established my interest in relief printmaking and finally gave up completely on the idea of illustration, or anything else, as a career. Instead I began to wander the beautiful landscape of Wales for my subject matter, my inspiration and my peace of mind. I’ve been there ever since and couldn’t imagine doing any other subject matter with any other process.
Describe your printmaking process
Well it would previously have been a simple description of the linocut reduction process, with the occasional multi block now and then. Now, however, the process is a bit more involved. I’ll begin with a walking trip along a specific area or long distance footpath and fill a sketchbook with drawings and notes. I then like to produce the work in the same chronological order as the work is produced so I start at the beginning of the sketchbook. This sketch is then enlarged to the specific size of the woodblock I’m working on. 450mm x 600mm for example. The tracing then has a thin Japanese tissue (usually about 10-18gsm) stuck down over it and the original drawing is traced/redrawn using a Chinese brush and ink. The aim is to recapture the energy and spontaneity I felt doing the original drawing, which can be lost during the tracing and transferring process. Once dry this will be glued, face down of course, onto a block with rice paste glue. This is the key block and will be cut to give a line drawing of the final print. Then everything but the inked lines of the drawings are cut away. After a quick clean to remove the remaining tissue paper this block is printed onto more woodblocks. All of these blocks will then be cut depending on which area/colour of the image they’ll print. Then the playing with inks start, proofing different colours and tones to decide how the final print will look. This is the point at which the new secret method of Tabi Hanga is deployed. Once I am happy with decisions made during proofing. I’ll print the whole edition.
How and where did you learn to print?
I did a degree in Graphic design and Illustration, at Leicester Polytechnic, and did a printmaking module in my final year. Though I enjoyed it, it didn’t really grab me as much as you’d expect looking at my later career path. Once I’d left college and started working as a freelance Illustrator I started experimenting with print more and more. Eventually becoming completely obsessed. I’ve had no formal printmaking education, but learnt everything by deciding what I wanted from a picture then trying to work out how I could achieve a result I was happy with.
The only formal lesson I’ve had have been a 2017 trip to The Purple Bamboo Studio in Hanzhou China, for two weeks with Pine Feroda, to learn Water Woodblock. Which was a fantastic experience and did change the way I produce my work.
Then more recently in 2023 a rather enjoyable Collagraph weekend with Charles Shearer at our very own Handprinted studio. Other than that I learnt a great deal of the technique and process of woodblock printing working with the other members of the Pine Feroda collective over our ten year period.
Why printmaking?
What’s that saying; “For those that know, no explanation is necessary, for those that don’t, no explanation will suffice. “
If that’s too trite, it’s just brilliant. It’s art and craft together. It’s mixing colours and playing with sharp tools, it’s traditional and modern, set about with technical limitations and yet somehow endlessly flexible. Frustrating and fabulous and you’ll never master it completely, so you have an absorbing task to try and get better at for as long as you want to put the work in.
Where do you work?
I am very lucky to have a wonderful studio on the top floor of a building in Tywyn, on the coast of Mid Wales all to myself. It has all the things a good studio should have. Huge floor to ceiling north facing windows, South facing ceiling velux, worn wooden floors, and loads of space and a beautiful press. Oh and did I mention it’s above a cafe and Tapas bar?
Describe a typical day in your studio
Like most self employed artists, there isn’t really a ‘typical’ day. Though I tend to come to the studio Mon- Friday it really depends on what I have on. I could be printing, doing admin, framing work. A better question would be what is my ‘preferred’ type of day. Which is, of course, to spend the whole day lost in the carving of a block, or equally preferential is sitting on the side of a mountain, drawing the view, and eating a nice sandwich.
How long have you been printmaking?
I started using a rough form of printmaking in my Illustrations, once I’d left College, when I was about 22. So lets say over 30 years and leave it there.
What inspires you?
Outside. The landscape, pure and simple. The colours, the shapes, the light, the forms, the patterns, the textures and then how they all interact and balance and contrast with one other.
What is your favourite printmaking product?
Bit of a cheat answer as it’s not a thing but a collection of ‘things’ that allows my favourite process. So my current favourite(s) are; A lovely sheet of Shin Ply or Japanese Ply, with some Ino Shi 18gsm tissue stuck face down onto it. Tissue on which I’ve traced out my sketch in Chinese brush and ink. Then, once it is dry, I spend weeks carving this key block with my trusty, left handed, hangito.
What have you made that you are most proud of?
Not sure I like the word proud… however the work I am most satisfied with at the moment is the new experimental process, I am developing with Wuon Gean Ho and Judith Westcott, called Tabi Hanga. It’s really showing more and more depth the more I play with it and the more I use it the more I love the results it gives me.
Where can we see your work? Where do you sell?
Through my website of course, on which there is a list of the galleries that hold my work. I’m also at brilliant shows like The Great Print Show at Rheged for example. See press for details.
What will we be seeing from you next?
I’ll be working through the sketches for my Cadair Idris series and producing those prints. Which will give me a chance too further develop the Tabi Hanga process. After that I’ve got a few more projects in mind I’d like to get started on, perhaps a coastal path here, maybe a Ridgeway there.
Do you have any advice for other printmakers and creatives?
Hmm one aways has to be careful about offering advice. Implies the offeree knows more than the person to whom the advice is offered. But here goes with a few pointers:
Try sh*t out. Play around and have fun. Be brave and print/paint/draw as if no-one else is going to see it, ever. It doesn’t matter if other people love it or hate it, how do YOU feel about it. And never, ever, feel slighted if some anonymous selection committee rejects your work for some show or other. It really, really, is all completely subjective.