Joanna Bourne

Joanna has been making prints for the last 30 years, occasionally teaching printmaking locally alongside a busy family life.

The Town Moor area of Newcastle near her home inspires many prints along with the changing seasons and reduced colour palette that winter brings to the local parks, allotments and the flora and fauna of her own garden. Specialising in Woodcut techniques, her Newcastle studio is spread over two rooms of her home, with one used for designing and preparing her woodcuts and making collages, and a second room housing her 1861 Albion Press used for printing her editions of woodcuts. 

“When planning a new print, I choose the wood according to the grain, as this forms an important part of the design of the images, adding texture and a sense of direction. I break down the image into a series of layers with some blocks inked up in more than one colour, and build the image, incorporating overprinting in transparent colours, jig-sawing blocks and reduction printing. Each new print is approached in a way that suits the image…”