Hester’s work is a combination of collagraph printmaking and relief methods. Texture and colour are important aspects of the final print and often the inking process ensures that no two prints are identical.

She is inspired by the natural landscape, the plants and wildlife that inhabit it and the stories, myths and symbolism associated with them. Hester's work features in The Gallery's current exhibition, Take to The Skies.

1. What is your studio like?

It is great! It is one of the front rooms of my house and has a wooden floor (easy to wipe the ink off of when I tread it around the place), white walls and beams across the ceiling. There is one window so it can get a bit dim in winter but a friend has just fitted it with a very good light which has a daylight bulb and that has totally revolutionised how I work. It will be possible to print accurately no matter what time of day or night. I have filled my studio with all the things I need to print: etching press, inking up bench, drawers, book shelves etc but it also has lots of the things in it that inspire me too. I love natural objects and have a print tray full of fossils, skulls, bones and feathers and I like to look at images by other artists to keep me feeling cheerful and inspired.

2. How did you first get into art?

I have been drawing for as long as I have been able to hold a pen/crayon and used to spend days in the zoo drawing animals when I was 5 or 6. My grandfather was a commercial artist and my mum and older sister are both very creative so it must be in my blood. I did a General Foundation Certificate in Art & Design after doing A Level Art and then went on to do a BA (hons) in Illustration at Harrow School of Art & Design. I’ve been printmaking since I left college.

3. Why printmaking?

Printmaking is my passion... no other art form has kept me so captivated and I foresee it being an enduring way for me to create my work. I enjoy working in a very detailed way and used to paint but never knew when to stop! The kind of printmaking that I do involves being very organised and methodical and appeals to that part of me but collagraph also uses texture and collaged materials which add an element of the unknown to the process. The fact that you have to seal the plate with varnish before you can print it and see the final image is very good for me. It means I have a definite cut-off point. Then I have the exciting moment to look forward to when I have laboriously inked and wiped my printing plate and have run it through the press... I lift the corner of the paper and the image is revealed!

4. Where do you look for inspiration?

I’m a country person as opposed to a city dweller and it is the animals, birds and plants that inhabit the countryside that continually provide me with inspiration. I see hares, deer and lots of birds when I am running around the country lanes of Masham and they often make it into a print. I also love to travel and have spent a year and half overseas in Asia, South East Asia and Central and South America. The colours, culture and wildlife I saw have had a profound effect on me as has the act of journeying. Migration of animals, birds and people is fascinating and I have been developing those ideas lately. Poetry and stories might spark off an idea as do the sea and anything to do with mariners.

5. Which artists (living or dead) have influenced you the most?

In my teens and early twenties I was very influenced by the work of Susan Seddon Boulet. Now it is hard to say. The artists whose work I love the most are, strangely, sculptors who often work in an abstract way. I really admire the work of Andy Goldsworthy, Anthony Gormley, Anish Kapoor & James Turrell. Their work speaks to me of the important things in life: humanity and our relationship to nature and the cosmos.

6. Could you describe your process of creating a print? from idea to frame?

I will have an idea in my head for several months sometimes up to a year before it makes it into a sketchbook but when it does I tend to sketch out the basic design and then make a lot of thumbnail drawings to work out the sequence of printing and plate-making. I often print an image using as many as five separate printing plates and so careful preparation is really important. When I am making a collagraph, I will then sketch the design on to the cardboard (or make the acetates on my computer if I am making a solar print). I cut and collage onto the cardboard and then when it is finished it is sealed with button polish and allowed to dry. It is then ready to be inked. This is done by rubbing ink all over the surface of the printing plate and wiping the excess away using bits of newspaper. Heavyweight paper is soaked in a tray of water and blotted and this is placed on the bed of the press with the printing plate on top and both sandwiched between newspaper to protect the blankets of the press. The pressure from the rollers of the press as the bed is wound through forces the swollen paper fibres into the indentations of the plate to pick up the remaining ink and make the image. The exciting part is when you pull the paper away from the plate and see the image revealed. As I mentioned, there may be up to five printing plates involved and so the process can take all day to complete. The resulting prints are then hung from the ceiling in a drying rack for two to three days. I use oil-based ink for my work and this takes a while to dry. Once dry, I will cut a mount for the print and then put it in a frame that I will have had made for me. It is then ready to send to a gallery or take to an exhibition.

7 . Printmaking is a process which clearly requires patience, attention to detail and a steady hand. Do you ever just feel like chucking some paint around?

Well... printmaking can be that way yes, but that is just one aspect of it. I have recently been teaching more spontaneous methods such as printing with plasticine and monoprinting and that has been a lot of fun. There has been an underlying urge within me to create huge semi-abstract seascapes on canvas. It surfaces every time I am in the Hebrides! One day I think I’ll do it but it would just be for me.

8. Do you have any advice for budding artists?

Don’t give up and don’t let anyone else put you off!

9. Do you have a favourite piece or series of your own work?

The Traveller 1 is my ‘signature piece’. I began creating it whilst I was staying with a Mexican artist in Oaxaca who likened me to a butterfly... always flittering hither and thither and never settling for long. It explores the idea of journeys and transformation. It also features the morpho butterfly which was one of the reasons I wanted to go to the jungle. I saw three of them in the Amazonian rainforest in Peru. They are the most incredible creatures, like a slice of sky fluttering through the trees.

10.Whats your favorite colour?

Sea green or blue

11.Describe your perfect day.

My days vary from week to week, I have numerous passions and I like knowing that change is the one thing we can rely on in life so it is hard to describe a perfect day for me as it could take so many forms. It would definitely involve being outdoors at some point maybe after the successful first printing of a new plate, which I’d do whilst listening to Radio 4, I’d meet a friend for a good coffee and then head out to the coast for a spot of beach combing and swimming or up onto the fells for a walk or run. I’d then round the day off with someone special cooking a meal together, sharing a bottle of wine and watching a film in front of an open fire.