A practice-based investigation into relief-printing techniques in children's picturebooks

The use of relief-printing techniques in contemporary picturebook-making practice remains mostly optional or digitally supplemented, in spite of the ubiquity of historical techniques. At the same time, as a practising author-illustrator of picturebooks using relief-printing techniques to create artworks, I was experiencing a sense of limitation imposed on myself by the medium.

The aim of this practice-based research into relief-printed picturebooks is to develop historical relief-printing techniques into a relevant form as a method of creating original artwork for picturebook in contemporary practice. The result aims to bring further knowledge on this subject into the field, as well as providing useful references on techniques for practitioners. It would also be valuable in terms of preserving and reframing manual art techniques in the digital age.

Bibliographical analysis and reflective practice have been used as research methods.The former is applied to detailed examination of the artworks by selected historical and contemporary artists, as well as my own. Where the development of new techniques is involved, reflective practice has been applied, which dealt with trial and error, evaluation of results, and further experimentation and analysis. The exploration of new techniques was situated within processes of picturebook-making from conception to visualisation, through which their mutually supportive relationship was revealed. This was a key finding of the research.

As the outcome, a picturebook and its catalogue of artwork associated with the written commentary of the project have been produced. The findings of the research are the revised relief-printing techniques, as well as a new approach to the development of printmaking techniques through the combination of bibliographical analysis and reflective practice in picturebook-making.

Regarding further research possibilities, the relief printed picturebooks by other artists mentioned in this thesis are limited to a selection to fulfil the purpose of this research, and thus an extended bibliographical study on this area would be effective, as well as practice-based research on other printmaking techniques in picturebooks.