In the sixties I got a degree at Chelsea art school and on leaving started at once to make prints. Etching and engraving on metal seemed the most exciting thing in the world. And then words - the interplay of words and images. So I was into books.

The idea I remember came to me in a traffic jam near the Elephant and Castle. To make a celebration of female power and energy. It took six months. I worked on steel for the plates, using a lot of soft ground and deep etching for which steel is admirably suited. They were in no way direct illustrations to the verse but since image and poem came from the same source idea they coupled up naturally enough. Ron King of Circle Press printed the text and Studio Prints editioned the etchings. I called the portfolio APHRODITE.

The WORLD’S END PRESS was born.

I bought my big Lion platen press after that and built a studio in the garden. No planning permission was needed in those far off days where we lived! I learnt a lot about type. AESOP’S FABLES was a steep learning curve. I used the small borders which came with the press to make pages of type like samplers. Whole rows of small dots had to be set by hand in chunks to make these patterns. I learnt the sensitivity of my huge press.

Then I did THE ROMAUNT OF THE ROSE. What is known as Fragment A, which is certainly no fragment, was begun by Guillaume de Lorris in 1237. Chaucer translated it and we did the whole thing in parallel columns of old English and French.

Astonishing how alike the two languages were then. I made seven etchings big enough to cover a double page without leaving platemarks at the edge.

When I started to make THOMAS TRAHERNE I changed to woodblock printing and able to bring real colour into the book. The blocks were painted with watercolour and printed using the Japanese method.This went a long way towards true integration of word and image.

In 1981 we finally moved out of London and I gave up printing big books. But of course I did not really give up. The books got smaller.

THE GIRL IN TH APPLE was translated from Tuscan dialect by Helena Attlee and printed on the Lion press. I cut wood blocks with a Japanese knife and hand coloured them.

After that I bought a Van der Cook printing press. A marvel of accuracy but not much fun. We printed KROPOTKIN ESCAPES. Julian Watson did the line drawings and the binding cloth was printed on the press.

I was into painting and did not do much else for some years, but with my discovery of the computer has come a realisation of its marvellous use as a tool for bookmaking.

THE FAIRY AND THE THIEF was the result of exploring Photoshop. I found the small printer would accept good watercolour paper. Hand printing is as quick, and better exercise,but oh the glory of the reproduction of the painted mark!

My last book,by the same process, is called LOOK BACK,and does just that, a long way... I have become aware of the beauty of the photograph.AB 2004

Click here to find out more about Ann Brunskill