Join Susan Yeates, an experienced art tutor and printmaker, for this online course that shows you how to create simple drypoint prints from home, without the need for a press!

This course is aimed at complete beginners to drypoint printing or those coming back to printmaking after a short break wanting a refresher that is easy to follow. 

It provides a simple step-by-step guide to printing drypoints, which are a very simple form of intaglio printmaking (e.g. etching.)

The course explains what tools and materials you need, how to make marks into the perspex plate, how to ink it up and finally how to print.

This online course is aimed at:

We accept students from all across the world, and as long as you have access to the internet, you can study whenever you want and wherever you want. We have no entry requirements and do not ask that you start at a particular time of the year – start when you want to!

Drypoint is a form of intaglio printmaking, (from the Italian word intaglione meaning to engrave or cut). It is the opposite to relief printing in that the marks that you draw are the areas that will print, making it a positive not a negative process. Intaglio printing also includes etching, engraving, mezzotint and aquatint and generally involves the use of a metal plate that is cut into in some way using various tools or acids, is then inked up and printed from, traditionally using an etching press.

Drypoint is the simplest of these intaglio methods and involves scratching directly into a plate using a strong, sharp metal point. 

In this course we work into perspex as the plate and burnish by hand without the need for a press (yes, a little bit of hard work is needed!)