David Sully was a student at the Royal Academy Schools under the teaching of Peter Freeth RA RE. Subsequently, he was employed to edition prints for artists at the 107 Workshop in Wiltshire, and worked for five years plate making and editioning intaglio prints.
For the last 25 years he has been employed as the Printmaking Area Co-ordinator and Senior Technical Instructor in Etching at the University of the West of England in Bristol, and is part of a lively print community in Bristol. He has also independently taught master classes in aquatint and chine colle at the Spike Print Studio in Bristol.
He aims to make both drypoint and aquatint prints with the same spontaneity as his sketchbook drawings. For a number of years he has carried out the ritual of making small, relatively quick drawings in either pencil or ink wash in small sketchbooks. There is a temporal aspect of a day-to-day diary. The drawings are made at a pace and involve direct one-go decisions.
These drawings evidence the way the seasons overlap, the linear architecture of the trees in winter and their transformation in the spring and autumn.
Drypoint or etching plates may be started or completed entirely on location with the aim of carrying the spontaneity within the sketchbooks onto the plate. David is interested in how a gestural flourish can be allied to the internal rhythm of the drawing, and how the quality of each chosen print medium can add subtlety.