10 Minutes With Angie Lewin

The painter, printmaker and co-founder of St Jude’s prints reveals to NATALIE MILNER how nature’s understated beauty inspires her art

What made you first want to be a painter and printmaker?

I took sculpture at Central School of Art and Design, but when I went into the print studios I decided that was what I was more suited to. The print rooms at central’s old Southampton Row building were beautiful.

How did you develop your style?

I have always had a graphic way of drawing and working with line. I like to create a hard-edged, linear quality. Being able to draw is a two-way thing in that it helps you to become a printmaker – certainly with relief printmaking and making stencils for screen – but then, in turn, it influences the way you interpret the world around you.

What draws you to linocut and wood engraving?

There’s something about relief printing that I love. It is a satisfying process. The tools and the Japanese papers I print on feel so beautiful to use. You draw the image on the block, cut it, ink it and print. It’s this transformation I enjoy. When I’m doing lots of watercolour, I look forward to printmaking. I like to move between the processes.

Your work focuses on native British plants, often weeds. What attracts you to this subject?