Essdee interview/article
- Martin Truefitt-Baker, Art
- 13 minutes ago
- 6 min read
Essdee, the art and craft manufacturer and shop, has just written a short article on me and my work. Here is the text plus some of the illustrations. Here's a direct link to the page... https://www.essdee.co.uk/martin-truefitt-baker/ Or it's the same text here.
Martin Truefitt-Baker is a printmaker and painter based in the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park in South Wales. Inspired by the surrounding landscape and wildlife, he creates striking reduction linocuts that capture the character and spirit of the natural world. In this interview, he reflects on his creative process, influences and printmaking journey.
Can You Introduce yourself?
I’m a fine art printmaker, painter and sometimes educator, living just outside Crickhowell, in the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park, South Wales. My paintings and linocut prints are mainly inspired by the beautiful surroundings and wildlife.
I originally trained as an illustrator and book designer at UCW Aberystwyth and then became involved in education for 30+ years. It is only in the last ten years that I have returned to concentrating on producing my own work.
Describe your style of printmaking
My linocuts use a reduction method, mostly from just a single piece of lino. This is progressively cut away and overprinted onto paper several times, in a succession of tones, to build up the final image. The process means that there is no way back if you make a mistake. I usually make a maximum of six layers of printing in a design, after that I feel you lose the nice ‘graphic’ feel. Successive layers of printing need very careful registration, even then, sometimes half of the prints that I start out with, don’t make the final edition.
I’ve been experimenting with some mezzotint and collograph techniques recently, for a softer, more painterly effect.
How and when did you get started in printmaking?
I can’t remember any printmaking when I was in school. I don’t think I tried linocut printing, litho and intaglio, until I was in college. So I made sure I taught lino printmaking (along with many other arty things, from textiles to welding) as an Art teacher, in a secondary school, to 11 to 18 year olds. I still occasionally teach classes, when I’m not too busy, in schools and colleges. I’m a visiting tutor, to a couple of studios in California, later this year… exciting!
Where do you work?
I’m lucky that a previous owner of my cottage made a large single story extension, it makes a nice studio. I’ve just taken part in an open studio event and it’s great to have a lot of wall space.
Tell us about your typical day
My typical working day varies, it very much depends on which stage, of the current project, I’m at. If I’m not working on a particular design, I may be researching or walking (or both), looking for something that will spark an idea.
When I start developing a print idea that is heading to be an edition, I may work quite long hours, making the design as good as I can get it. This stage can takes around six weeks. Lots of revising and changing the composition and viewpoint. This is where the ‘poetry’ creeps in. I make an acrylic painted tonal version of the design in blue. This is my master image, that is reversed and transferred to the lino. Cutting and printing takes around three weeks and can be quite hectic… lots of cups of tea and too many biscuits… and the cats demanding food!
What inspires your work?
The wonderful local landscape, wildlife and the changing seasons have become increasingly important in my work. Images and inspiration often start out from an early morning walk over the hillside with paints, camera and sketch book. The light is at it’s best and the landscape is fresh. I may get a gimps of a fox running through the rain, or a cuckoo flying past where I’m painting, every day is different. So I try to catch some of the mystery of the way the animal moves and lives within its environment, as if you were there with it running or swimming alongside, rather than observing from a distance. The backgrounds are busy with the rough mountainsides, twisted trees, wild flowers, birds and insects.
I find my painted work and printmaking support and inform each other. I often start a design or painting in a particular place but then return to finish work back in the studio from sketches, notes and photographs taken at the time. I’m trying to capture the magic and spirit of the wildlife and landscape and my response to it, rather than a simple direct (maybe photographic) representation. I’ve always been inspired by that very British thing, where the landscape is full of possibilities and mystery. Blake, Palmer, Turner, Ravilious, Bawden, Nash, Sutherland and Piper are high on my favourites artists list.
Do you have a favourite print that you have made?
It is so difficult to pick a favourite print or prints. I get so involved in the process, that when I finish an edition I find it impossible to see past minor mistakes and missed opportunities, for quite a while. Then one day, several years later, I’ll look at a print and it feels like someone else made it, then I can see it objectively. So, at the moment, I think some of my earlier wildlife prints, the ones that were first noticed by publishers are my favourites. The Winter Fox, the Usk Otter and The Barn Owl Winter Branches
What is your greatest achievement?
My greatest art achievement is simply making and selling my handmade prints. It still knocks me out every time! I always do the ‘I’ve just sold a print’ dance (in private, I may add)… maybe not with quite as much energy (and dangerous moves) as I used to, but with lots of gratitude.
I tried to make a living as an illustrator when I first graduated, with limited success. I was living in London but quite naive about the art world. It was before the internet and agents were the gatekeepers to progression in many creative areas. To see that some of my designs have now been used as greetings cards, jigsaws, notebooks and calendars, is quite a thrill and a validation.
What are you working on at the moment?
I’ve just finished a large print of a red kite flying over Crickhowell bridge. It hasn’t been exhibited in many places yet but has been quite popular, it recently won the printmaking prize in the lovely Oriel Cric (Gallery) Open Exhibition.
I’m just sketching out a new design of a pair of ravens that have been nesting on some cliffs on the mountainside near to my studio.
Tell us an interesting fact about yourself.
My degree dissertation (I did a weird and quite academic kind of joint honours, with lots of Art History) was on Edward Bawden (look him up if you don’t recognise the name, he was a great friend and collaborator with Ravilious). He was then in his eighties and I was lucky enough to visit him for a weekend and talk to him about his work and watch him in his studio. I have cards, signed books and correspondence from him about his work. I just had to be a printmaker after that.
Do you have any top tips or advice for other printmakers?
Make work that inspires and is personal to you. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Technique is secondary to what you want to say. Everyone has something that makes them an interesting, beautiful, and individual; express it and enjoy it. Looking at a good work of art should be a surprise, looking at the world through someone else’s eyes! Study the work of other artists and see the way they have turned their ideas and what they want to communicate into prints. Then work towards doing that for yourself, developing your own process, rather than simply copying elements of their work and style.
Where can we see more of your work?
I’m a featured artist at Oriel Cric (Crickhowell). Then I am involved in a few other exhibitions around the UK each year. I’ve just sent work to be a part of a big exhibition in the Rheged Centre in Penrith called ‘The Brilliance of Birds’, it runs from the 3rd July to the 4th October 2026.
Is there anything else you would like to tell us about?
I routinely post images of my work on SM and I’ve gradually built up a following (please, please, follow me!). Recently there has been a growing number of comments from people who don’t understand the process and have accused me of posting AI images! I try to (politely) point out their mistake and that there is a full blog post on my website about the design and printing of each edition, but this is a worrying development, for someone who makes a living from original handmade prints. I even had a comment posted back to me, as evidence of it being AI, an AI image, that that had been put together, partially using one of my linocuts!
As you can tell, no AI was involved in creating this rambling prose!
Website – https://www.truefitt-baker.co.uk/
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/truefittbakerart/
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