Artist Lecture With Scott Schnepf

Scott Schnepf

Retired UNH Professor- 2015

Four Decades of Printmaking

I attended the artist lecture by Scott Schnepf on November 28th. Schnepf is a retired UNH professor who taught drawing, painting, and printmaking for thirty-four years. Two of his biggest influencers are past professors from his college years, Carl Grupp from Augustana College and James Munce from Kansas State University. He's most known for his series of prints. However, Schnepf believes that his other mediums have largely influenced his printmaking. He has multiple techniques that he uses to create complex arrays of still life prints. The three printing techniques he uses is etching, mezzotint, and engraving. Etching is a technique where the copper is covered with an acid resist and then an image is etched on the plate. It is then put into an acid bath with uncovers the image that can then be printed. Mezzotint involves roughing the service of a copper plate to create areas of light and dark. Engraving involves cutting directly into a piece of copper and inking the slab that can be printed onto paper. Unlike photography, printmaking is extremely time consuming. However, similarly with both printmaking and photography you can make multiple prints from the original work. One thing that resonated with me was Schnepf's view on landscapes. He said he often gets overwhelmed by landscapes. I prefer to shoot macro photography because full scale images often look too complicated and busy to me. Also just like Schnepf, I have formed my artistic style by experimenting with other mediums, like drawing. I really enjoyed this artistic lecture. I think it was very interesting to learn about a medium that is extremely different from photography but also similar in many ways.