Rod Nelson

I’d like to think that encouragement and humour are at the core of my approach. I try to remember to praise and suggest rather than criticise. As far as I am able to do so, I stay away from ‘opinions on taste’ – we’re all so different in this regard.

When a student goes away from a course, I would like them to take with them an enhanced approach to their future relationship with the art and craft of woodblock. They will hopefully have a more open and fresh attitude to using various techniques and they will have more courage to work more bravely. I have some useful skills, not least the ability to set up tools properly and to sharpen them as well as they can be sharpened, which is virtually perfectly. I also know quite a lot more than the average student about wood, wood blocks, registration, paper types, inks, application of ink, etc etc.. The basic skill of cutting a block safely and accurately is something that I can help everyone at student level with. If a student leaves armed with these basic skills, they will be able to work on their own.

Sympathy for the struggling. Kindness. Preparedness to repeat myself endlessly.

Quite honestly, this shifts along with time?.it’s not a fixed field of inspiration. To wait for inspiration is not necessarily the way I work. I prefer just to work anyway. Sometimes I will use the need to sell prints for money as inspiration: it can be as good an inspiration as any, even if this reason appears materialistic on the surface to a critical and perhaps superior onlooker. A constant thread of inspiration are the patterns of Nature. Although this sounds quite different, I am also influenced by narrative, satirical, and political cartoon including manga, Moebius, the English school derived from Lowe as well as Steve Bell and the great R. Crum. As far as other recent or contemporary artists are concerned, Shiko Munakata is my great hero. But there are other wonderful printmakers – Naoko Matsubara, Eric Gill, Eric Ravilious, Franz Masereel, Reza Derakshani, Pablo Picasso – all of whom have filled me with admiration. I’m also keenly aware of the Japanese shin hanga (of course) and of German mediaeval woodblock printmakers. Encouragement from other printmakers is also very motivating – Merlyn Chesterman has been enormously helpful in this regard.

Self-taught I have gained experience through teaching and through meeting with other artists and printmakers

Three courses at West Dean (all successful, I believe) with Merlyn Chesterman Two courses at an Arts Centre in Cricklade, Wiltshire. Courses for teenage children at AcornSchool Nailsworth Recent course for professional artists at Creative Picture Framers, Cirencester.

I don’t know. I’ve had work in exhibitions by the Society of Wood Engravers and Printmakers and also at Originals 07, the London Printmakers show.