Daniel Howden: Layers of Momentum


Daniel Howden gained the Aid Award in Jackson’s Artwork Prize this yr along with his work The Kitchen Sink. On this interview, Daniel talks about his reductive and layered strategy to printmaking, the significance of momentum, and the supplies that he can’t stay with out.

Above picture: Daniel Howden’s studio


 

The Kitchen Sink, 2024
Daniel Howden
Discount linocut, 30 x 30 cm | 11.8 x 11.8 in

 

Josephine: Might you inform us about your inventive background?

Daniel: My mum’s at all times been artistic and might flip her hand to lots of stuff. I feel maybe she handed this on to me from a younger age. At college, someplace between 2004 and 2006, I realised I might make folks giggle by creating issues – which meant a fantastic deal to me. I wasn’t essentially good at drawing, nor was I a very expert painter, however I had a really vivid creativeness and many enthusiasm. I might rope in mates and get them to populate brief sketch ‘comedy’ movies that I filmed round York. We briefly stapled collectively a weekly zine (pamphlet) too, and every now and then, I’d assemble hoardings and trophies so as to add some immersion to park soccer. The Argos catalogue was by no means distant and was at all times good for getting maintain of a two-megapixel point-and-shoot or instrument to assist an thought.

Curiously, it by no means actually crossed my thoughts to study the intricacies of the instruments I used to be utilizing, all the things was completed with lots of imprecision and a giant grin. Artwork concept suffered an identical destiny. I had an insane stage of endurance for sure issues and completely none for others. All that to say, this formative interval was scattered and experimental and continued all the best way into increased training.

 

Daniel Howden

Daniel Howden at his studio in York.

 

I used to be launched to lino in 2012 when a basis tutor fortunately recommended that acrylic portray won’t be the best way ahead for me. I took some small lino blocks dwelling to practise and instinctively began to chop them up with scissors. I wasn’t certain how else I used to be supposed to incorporate the colors I needed and turning to the web for pointers felt like defeat. I grew to become fairly obsessive and beloved the problem this strategy posed. It wasn’t till graduating from Liverpool College of Artwork and Design three years later in 2015 that I started to supply prints that I assumed have been satisfactory.

One yr on, I managed to get a spot on the Royal School of Artwork to check MA illustration, however the finance concerned was steep. As an alternative, I went to Manchester and some months later was awarded the 2016 Anthony Dawson Younger Printmaker of the 12 months on the Bankside Gallery in London. I can’t emphasise how vital that yr was for my growth and it actually shaped the premise for the way I strategy printmaking immediately. It additionally had a profound private impression too.

 

Supplies and tools.

 

Josephine: What does a typical working day within the studio appear like for you? Do you’ve gotten any vital routines or rituals?

Daniel: I presently work part-time, so a typical day lacks the momentum I’d like on the minute. If I’m working a morning shift, I’ll return, have lunch after which normally sit from 1:30 pm to midnight and if I’m on a day, I’ll work 5 pm to midnight. With out momentum, I don’t assume my strategy to linocut is as possible. There’s numerous planning and rolling required and if I swap off for ten minutes, errors can simply creep in. Moreover, if I have been to repeatedly go away my desk, there’s a excessive likelihood my inks may dry or I’ll overlook which components I’ve already carved out of the block I’m engaged on.

The time aspect comes into play a bit too. Once I set out on a 30 x 30 cm print, I do know there’s a chance I’ll be wanting on the similar {photograph} for weeks, so It’s preferable to deal with it in fewer stints.

Since turning 32 final month, I’ve stripped away a few my longstanding rituals. I’ve eliminated caffeine from my life, and lyrics have at all times distracted me, so I now have a giant jug of water close by and I are inclined to hearken to lengthy, peaceable Animal Crossing soundtracks on YouTube that I don’t need to intervene with.

 

A drawn out lino block.

 

Josephine: Which supplies or instruments might you not stay with out?

Daniel: I actually haven’t deviated too removed from the supplies I used to be utilizing again in 2012, to be trustworthy. Again then it was fairly make-do. My mum donated a few glass chopping boards to the trigger for me to roll my inks onto – I nonetheless use these. And up till very just lately I used the identical low cost and cheerful Scola 300 ml water-based inks that may most likely be present in most colleges. Since successful the Aid Award I’ve began to make use of Cranfield reduction inks, which have been a really good change.

Polymer linoleum blocks are important, nonetheless. These have been a staple for the reason that starting. I don’t assume they’re branded, I’ve by no means actually stopped to test. With out this kind of lino I wouldn’t have been capable of produce the work that I’ve to this point. I simply actually want it got here in bigger sizes. 30 x 30 cm is my default dimension and I feel 40 x 30 cm is their ceiling. I’ve just lately begun supergluing squares of it collectively to make 60 x 60 cm sheets, getting my palms on a real block of that measurement could be a game-changer.

Throughout my grasp’s in 2017, I experimented with paper inventory so much and Mushy White Somerset Satin 300 gsm grew to become my agency paper of alternative. It’s actually important and I’ve at all times purchased it from Jackson’s. It’s tremendous dependable and improbable at absorbing the inks, making it permissible for me to layer the best way I do and with confidence, which is required once you’re many, many registrations deep and pushing the paper to the restrict.

 

Daniel Howden

 

Josephine: Do you utilize any distinctive strategies in your printmaking course of?

Daniel: I really feel as if each couple of years, with out essentially making an attempt, I’ll uncover a cool little trick that I didn’t know my instruments have been able to. Some are pretty apparent, others not a lot. Earlier than I graduated from college, I by chance stumbled upon a extremely unusual reducing movement that’s efficient for carving bushes and foliage. And through my grasp’s, once I needed to work at a breakneck tempo, I discovered that lightly urgent little scraps of paper onto a moist layer can each dry and cut back the color of the ink with out damaging the ink beneath. It’s not likely for me to say what’s distinctive however I feel perhaps the jigsaw strategy and the diploma to which I’ve doubled down on it’s pretty uncommon. It calls for lots of focus and a focus and takes a substantial quantity of effort and time. I’ve been refining it since 2012, so it’s twelve years within the making at this level.

The registrations are a byproduct of the approach, I assume. I lower up the blocks which inspires extra element and I make use of the variety of layers I do due to the shading and realism I’m making an attempt to depict.

 

Daniel Howden

Townhouse, 2023
Daniel Howden
Discount linocut, 30 x 30 cm | 11.8 x 11.8 in

 

Josephine: Do you commonly draw or maintain a sketchbook? In that case, how does this inform your work?

Daniel: I don’t maintain sketchbooks anymore. I haven’t for fairly a while as they began to really feel a bit compelled after college. I would like my prints to look as real looking as attainable and I don’t assume a sketch of mine is the optimum start line for that – so I doc potential concepts with my cellphone as an alternative.

If I come throughout one thing on the earth that ticks containers for a lino (nowadays I typically know instantly) I’ll snap it from each conceivable angle. So once I inevitably return to my potential lino folder at a later date, I’ve choices and might get a very good really feel for whether or not it’s proper to attract up. I assume that is my model of sketching.

 

Daniel Howden

Print chest

 

Josephine: Have you ever ever had a interval of stagnation in creativity? In that case, what helped you overcome it?

Daniel: Oh for certain, however I discover they happen once I cease leaving the home as a lot. I’m a giant fan of Feng shui and typically simply shifting a bit of furnishings can sharpen my focus. In 2022 my companion and I went on a giant journey round Europe and I got here again with a tonne of images and concepts that have been important for my follow. I don’t recall one other time my inspiration had been so low, however then once more residing completely indoors can do this, I assume.

I labored a lot between 2014 – 2021 with no break so I’m making an attempt to get into the behavior of carving a while for myself right here and there. There have been a few situations in the previous few years the place I’ve stopped printing for perhaps a month, which then rolls into two. While I’m at all times anxious I’ll overlook all the things, it doesn’t really feel as unsuitable because it used to and infrequently I come again with an improved manner of working.

 

Daniel Howden

Ten to Ten, 2021
Daniel Howden
Discount linocut, 30 x 40 cm | 11.8 x 15.7 in

 

Josephine: Are there any particular artists or mentors who’ve impressed you?

Daniel: Linocut is a reasonably summary and impressionistic medium. It’s not one thing you’d essentially use to seize a photographic high quality. I perceive this. But, my follow goals to push lino to its capability and create essentially the most real looking imagery I can given the constraints. While I actually don’t assume my work goes to be mistaken for an oil portray or {a photograph}, I’d like there to be a second of hesitation relating to what it’s. It’s this problem that’s saved me hooked all this time.

In case you’ll indulge the analogy for a second, it’s considerably similar to the visuals of the Nintendo DS – a online game system that I discover enormously inspiring.

I owned every iteration of this console from 2005 – 2011 and there have been a handful of video video games that attempted so laborious to pack real looking visuals right into a tiny, wafer-thin cartridge. The graphics of those video games landed on this stunning, confused territory of virtually crossing the road into realism, however in the end failing due to the {hardware} limitations of Nintendo units on the time. In fact, most video games got down to supply immersive graphics. But it surely was the try to take action on this explicit system, a system that merely wasn’t made to deal with that a lot knowledge, that captured my creativeness and nonetheless does. Linocut, to me, nearly acts as a filter for my pictures.

As a postgraduate at uni, I used to be lucky sufficient to have linocut royalty Christopher Brown as a tutor. His 2012 e-book An Alphabet of London was an enormous affect on me on the time. I’ve gone again just a few occasions for compositional inspiration.

 

All of My Certificates, Tekken and Little Tikes framed.

 

Josephine: How did it really feel to grasp you had gained the Aid Award?

Daniel: My expertise of being a lino artist has at all times been fairly solitary. Though I actually do get pleasure from that aspect of it, I do know others who handle to make it extra social, both by sharing a studio area or having a wider circle of inventive mates. It may be fairly unnerving when the first supply of suggestions/validation/gauging competence is the variety of pings or love hearts in your cellphone. I used to be, and nonetheless am, extremely grateful and shocked to have been awarded this, particularly given the wild quantity of expertise and assorted approaches within the longlist alone. Alternatives like this one, for printmakers, are particularly uncommon and it was a fantastic reduction to have been chosen.

 

Monolith II, 2022
Daniel Howden
Discount linocut, 56 x 40 cm | 22.05 x 15.7 in

 

Josephine: Your lino print is made up of a staggering 277 registrations – how lengthy does this course of take? Do you’re employed with so many layers in all of your prints?

Daniel: Layering is a basic aspect of my follow given my reductive strategy to printmaking and at this level, it could be fairly uncommon for a bit of mine to not exceed 100 registrations (relying on scale).

Once I first left college I used to be very eager to emphasize the variety of colors in every print I made, which is smart because it was new and I used to be nonetheless refining the method. There reached some extent although the place all of it felt a bit empty and I needed the emphasis to be positioned on the subject material as an alternative, relatively than the approach. So I ended protecting observe as a lot and steadily began making work that was of curiosity to me.

I’ve by no means managed to supply greater than ten editions of a print run earlier than. That’s partly all the way down to studio area and in addition because of the sheer size of time it could take. The Kitchen Sink took simply over a month in whole and there have been 5 editions. That’s 1385 registrations in all – which is so much.

Probably the most I’ve ever completed in a single print was Monolith II in 2022 which contained 442 registrations, had 9 editions and was 56 x 40 cm. I labored on it full time and It took a bit over two months to supply. I don’t assume I’ll be seeking to surpass that anytime quickly.

It’s attainable for me to create smaller, singular works throughout the area of every week with out compromising something, and that is one thing I’m hoping to do extra of shifting ahead.

 

Daniel Howden

The Kitchen Sink editions

 

Josephine: The Kitchen Sink is a scene of on a regular basis life that I’m certain many individuals shall be intimately acquainted with. Why are you drawn to this material?

Daniel: The Kitchen Sink is a part of an ongoing sequence I’m slowly engaged on that depicts saturated synthetic objects in shut proximity to 1 one other. Plastic is foul, let’s get that straight, nevertheless it’s right here and it has a visible high quality that my eye is drawn to. I feel the best way I layer ink can also be fairly efficient at recreating its floor, whether or not that’s matte or shiny, in addition to its vivid color. I discover that I’m actually drawn to sunbleached supplies, particularly once they’re in opposition to a pure backdrop – that distinction is lino territory for me.

The Kitchen Sink is of a window show I got here throughout in Germany. Imagine it or not, what I illustrated is barely a fraction of the chaos I noticed.

While I’m a fan of classic containers and saucers, it was the cluttered mess, amount, and sheen of the objects that led me to print it.

 

Josephine: What’s developing subsequent for you?

Daniel: I’m presently within the strategy of relocating to London to be with my companion. That’s taking over most of my time in the intervening time, and so I’ve downed instruments the previous few months. I’m additionally placing the ending touches to my portfolio which I hope to current to some businesses within the close to future.

Go to Daniel’s web site

Comply with Daniel on Instagram

 

 


 

Additional Studying

Linocut Carving Strategies for Newbies

Prime Linocut Ideas from Main Printmakers

How Paper Weight is Measured

In Dialog With John Cogley, Daniel Smith

 

Store Printmaking on jacksonsart.com

 



Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *