Earlier this year I enrolled in a beginning printmaking class at Santa Barbara City College. The prints below are my first: a drypoint (intaglio) study of circus-style type design, made on a zinc plate. The letters (in particular the ‘A’) are based on the Zebrawood font; I’ve always been fascinated by the various ways font of this style suggest a visual gradation from black to white with simple geometric shapes: circles, trapezoids, rectangles, chevrons, etc.

This project taught me that drypoint is a printmaking method that affords the artist great control over line depth and shading, but it’s not ideal for such ‘graphic’ imagery as type.

Next up.. screenprinting!