Printmaker visits Year 10 GCSE Art Students

This week, inspiring printmaker Jo Boddy visited Year 10 GCSE Art students and chatted with them on how to expand their thinking when it comes to creativity and that 'mistakes' should be embraced.

Jo was in a non-artistic career before she took up art again after having children. She discovered printmaking when she enroled on the Foundation Diploma in Art and Design at West Dean College of Art and Conservation in 2018, but it was during lockdown when she started playing with lino at home. 

Witnessing the changing light of sunsets during afternoon walks in Swinley Forest,  inspired Jo to create her first 'successful' reduction linocut.  She continued to explore the forest through her lino prints to produce Spring Mist in Green which was selected for exhibition at Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair 2021.

Jo embarked on an MA in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins via a remote course in September last year which has helped expand her thinking and led her to discover some revelations about her art, including that it is highly affected by seasons. 

Sharing her ideas with the students, she emphasised that experimenting is very important and her latest endeavour has been to use Caustic Soda to etch into lino and use natural materials as part of the print.   Techniques and the materials used often affect and inform each other, so experiments become cyclical.

Students then had a go at creating monoprints, and Jo asked them to think about the question "What happens if...? What happens if I use that tool to make a mark,  or what happens if I use a different material to print on... 

Jo advised that it is always good to come back to your creations later with fresh eyes and one of her biggest tips was to embrace ‘mistakes’ – it’s all learning and often the best pieces of art can come out of a something not turning out the way you expected...and only you know it wasn't supposed to be like that!

Thank you to Jo for her insightful talk and for sharing her beautiful art with us.  We look forward to welcoming her back in a couple of weeks to talk to the other GCSE class.