Printmaking – Hilke Kurzke

I love experimenting with print and different print techniques, and mostly keep my process light and playful. Using easily available materials frees up my thinking and helps me simply to enjoy the process. Most of my prints are relief prints, cut from whatever comes to my hand: rubber stamping materials and erasers as well as traditional printmaking lino and wood. But I also utilize other printmaking techniques like screenprints, aluminium (kitchen) litho, drypoint in rhenalon, and others.

Many of my print sessions result in mini prints of which I make to produce business cards (ATCs), bookmarks and other ephemeral items that I mostly give away or swap (let me know if you are interested). But every now and then I make what I consider a more serious print, in a larger format, which I then offer for sale. Here are some of the more recent “bigger” prints:

Nottingham inspired

Varying edition of 50.

Some of the prints are just the black linoprint, others have a colourful background whichis a silkscreen monoprint.

print size: 12cm x 15cm
paper size: 28cm x 38cm

Blank Background: £80
Monoprint Background: £120

Woodfish

Limited edition of 20.

This is a reduction or suicide print from a woodblock. The background was printed from another piece of wood.

Price: £45

Women With Hats

Limited Edition of 22

Artist Book/Collection of bookmarks. The edition of these books is limited to 22, each of the booklets has a handprinted wrapper, and a folded book inside which holds 6 different bookmarks from my woman with hat series. The prints themselves are not limited, just this presentation of rendition.

Price: £10

Here are some more images to look at from other prints I made:

Pagan Girl, Drypoint on Rhenalon by H. Kurzke

In many of my bottles for my project message in a bottle I used small rubber stamps as well as larger prints. Usually I don’t show the content of bottles that have not been found (yet), but I make an exception for you here: Click on the thumbnail below to start the slideshow.

message in a bottle no. 1
Title: Fische (lat. pisces). dispatched april 28 2013, river rhine in Bonn; found may 10th in Schwarzrheindorf a village two bends downstream

message in a bottle no. 1 - contents: all the bottles for which I cut custom stamps have the stamp included.
Title: Fische (lat. pisces). dispatched april 28 2013river rhine in Bonn; found may 10th in Schwarzrheindorf a village two bends downstream

message in a bottle no. 2, contents
title: Fische (lat. pisces) disptaced April 28th 2013 into the river rhine, Bonn. Not found yet

message in a bottle no. 4
dispatched April 28th 2013, into river rhine in Bonn; not found yet

message in a bottle no. 4, contents
Fische (lat. pisces) III dispatched April 28th 2013, into river rhine in Bonn; not found yet

message in a bottle no. 5, contents
title: Fische IV, dispatched April 28th 2013 into the river rhine in Bonn; not found yet

message in a bottle no. 10
title: sunprint Fisch, dispatched May 25th 2013 into the river rhine in bonn; found June 12th 2013 near Düsseldorf

message in a bottle no. 13
This bottle obviously uses one of my feather prints. Bottles no. 11 and 12 also used different feather lino prints. Unfortunately they lack documentation. This one here was dispatched on June 2nd 2013 into the river rhine in Bonn, and was found a week later in Kalkar

messages in bottles numbered 16, 17, 18
title: beach findings. These three bottles have similar cover images made from a selection of stamps which I then distributed among the three. No. 17 was dispatched into the river rhine June 9th 2013 into the river rhine and was found December 29th 2013 in Düsseldorf; the others were dispatched into the Humber in England, and also into the rhine and have not been found yet

message in a bottle no. 17, contents
title: beach findings. dispatched into the river rhine June 9th 2013 into the river rhine and was found December 29th 2013 in Düsseldorf; the others were dispatched into the Humber in England, and also into the rhine and have not been found yet

message in a bottle no. 22
title: fish, candles and shells, dispatched July 19th into the river Weser, Bremen; not found yet

messages in bottles 23-28
more fish bottles. I liked to print fish for the covers of these bottles, because this seemed so fitting for something to throw into the water

message in a bottle no. 23, contents
title: funky fish I, dispatched July 19th 2013 into the river Elbe, Hamburg; found in Hamburg July 31st 2013

messages in bottles 24, 25, 26
title: Hungry Fish. Dispatched July 19th and 20th in Bremen, Hamburg and Göttingen. None has been found

messages in bottles 27 and 28
title: funky fish and funky pufferfish. Both dispatched July 2013, none has been found yet

message in a bottle no. 27, contents
title: funky fish 2, dispatched June 16th Humber; has not been found yet

message in a bttle no. 28
title: funky pufferfish. dispatched July 19th river Elbe, Hamburg; has not been found yet

messages in bottles no. 33 and 34
title: Goldfisch, No. 33, the red one has beendispatched into the river Rhine near Mainz and was found about a week later a bit downstream stil in Mainz

message no. 34, contents
title: Goldfish. was part of the exhibition "Fluxjob" at the Minneapolis Center for Book Arts and is still waiting to be dispatched

message in a bottle no. 46
title: fish dispached 29/5/2013 Kelvin, Glasgow; has not been found yet

message in a bottle no. 56
title: jellyfish dispatched 5/12/2013 near Kiel (by a fellow message in a bottle writer Peter); has not been found yet

message no. 56 contents
title: jellyfish dispatched 5/12/2013 near Kiel (by a fellow message in a bottle writer Peter); has not been found yet

message no. 58, contents
title: we are fish, cardboard drypoint dispatched February 9th 2014 from board a ship on the North Sea. Has not been found yet

message in a bottle no. 58
title: we are fish, cardboard drypoint dispatched February 9th 2014 from board a ship on the North Sea. Has not been found yet

message in a bottle no. 66
title: shattered - screenprint. dispatched 19/8/2015 Wells-Next-The-Sea. has not been found yet

message in a bottle no. 67
title: Fish Love dispatched 13/8/2015 Welcombe Mouth Beach, Cornwall. Has not been found yet

message in a bottle no. 67, contents
title: Fish Love dispatched 13/8/2015 Welcombe Mouth Beach, Cornwall. Has not been found yet

message in a bottle no. 68
title: Fish Bottle dispatched 19/8/2015 Wells-Next-The-Sea; has not been found yet

message in a bottle no. 68, contents
title: Fish Bottle dispatched 19/8/2015 Wells-Next-The-Sea; has not been found yet

message in a bottle no. 69
title: jumping fish dispatched 17/8/2015 Wells-Next-The-Sea found the same day a bit further East also in Wells

message in a bottle no. 70
The first of my bottles that crossed the sea! title: diving fish, dispatched 19/8/2015 Wells-Next-The-Sea found: 22/11/2015 Sylt

message in a bottle no. 70, contents
The first of my bottles that crossed the sea! title: diving fish, dispatched 19/8/2015 Wells-Next-The-Sea found: 22/11/2015 Sylt

message in a bottle no. 71
title: Infiltrating the Library dispatched 17/8/2015 Wells-Next-The-Sea, found 23/8/2015 Wells-next the Sea

Project Message in a Bottle
title: Infiltrating the Library dispatched 17/8/2015 Wells-Next-The-Sea, found 23/8/2015 Wells-next the Sea

message in a bottle no. 76
title: "The Star" with heart print and stamp. dispatched 23/12/2015 into the river Ems,Telgte; has not been found yet

Since I participated in Sarah Bodman’s Bookmark project, I have been making different bookmarks. Some you have seen already above in the general gallery. If you would like to see more, click here: