There's not a whisper of sound at Joseph Winkelman's studio and workshop in Headington. Even the clocks don't tick in this step-back-in-time spot set over a Georgian coach-house and attached to his rather fine former farmhouse home. But that's not to say, despite the meticulous, ancient manner of his art, that he's not a modern man. Joseph Winkelman is at pains to point out that he lives very much in the twenty-first century and takes a thorough interest in the world outside his windows. So how did this Iowa boy come to live and work in Oxford's environs? What brought this man, son of a banker and farmer, to follow his artistic bent in the then-unfashionable city of dreaming spires while others were turning on, tuning in and dropping out, while railing against the Vietnam War?

He came to Oxford in 1968 to pursue a course in fine art at the Ruskin School of Drawing, partly because of his love of draughtsmanship, partly because he was already an Anglophile. And, in his words, he "just stayed."

"I'd been in Africa working as a teacher where I met people from the UK and I wanted to find out more," he explains.

There was very little counter-culture apparent in Oxford at the time - London was where it was happening and people assumed he would wish to practise his art there. But in reality, he says, a band of artists of all descriptions were quietly pursuing their lives in Oxford, away from the limelight and brash noise of the metropolis. His wife, Lowell, a research zoologist whom he had met in Africa, was also able to follow her own line of work - vital, it has proved, in keeping household income in the black since by Joseph's own admission printmaking does not pay "all the bills." It was this fact, not surprisingly, that bothered his father. "I got a lot of pressure to get a proper job," he says, adding that many an artist, him included, has sought to supplement their income by teaching or doing something else. "People only value your work when you're dead," he says, not a little ruefully. It's a detail that means he puts some of his best prints to one side by way of a legacy for his grown-up daughters and wife.

It seems a strange dichotomy that a man whose painstaking intaglio prints are sought after, who receives commissions from colleges and others in the know who value his art, whose work would grace any drawing room, gallery, or modern-day living space, can't make a decent living from printmaking. This is despite obvious recognition and six years as president of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers, known as the RE.

How does he feel about people spending a small fortune on a giclée, an inkjet reproduction which is sometimes hand embellished and signed by the artist? "It's a cheat," he says bluntly and in disgust. He can admire the technological advances in technique that allow such prints to look like original works of art (giclée is French for "to spurt or squirt") but passing them off as such is beyond the pale in his view.

By contrast, Joseph's creations take hour upon hour. So delicate and intricate is his art it can take months to finish a single print. He starts by making pencil drawings of his subject, then transposes these by using a wedge-shaped tool, called a burin, to cut into a copper plate, working at a desk with a mirror and easel, while a shade diffuses the daylight. Using tiny strokes he eases out different areas to create light and shade, in reverse to his original drawing, and it is these little holes and grooves that will retain the ink when he finally prints from his plate.

Looking at the plate he is engraving through a pair of magnifying glasses that have been given to him by one of his wife's zoological colleagues I can see how precise and fine each mark is. So it is no surprise to learn that each plate will only produce around 50 prints before it deteriorates to an unusable state. Sometimes, depending on the intricacy of the work, fewer prints than that are possible. Of course, there are ways of making the plates last longer, by having the original plate electrolysed with stainless steel, for example.

Sometimes he will use an aquatint to add colour to his work, which involves printing on to each paper more than once, requiring an exact match to ensure the colour and print registers.

His workshop downstairs is an Aladdin's cave of curiosities, from the press he uses to complete his work, to the glass and wood racks where he dries paper and prints. On his windowsill is an empty pot that once contained Frank Cooper's Oxford marmalade along with a glass paperweight, while hanging from the ceiling nearby are cloths made of cotton mesh, sized to give them a rougher texture, which he uses to take surplus ink off the plates before printing.

One weekend a year, during the Oxford art weeks, he throws open his doors and allows the public a glimpse inside his workshop and studio. It's a fascinating place to visit and view, full of the tools of his trade but perfectly in order. There is a precision to the man that is not merely confined to his work but spills out into his surroundings and is evident even in the courtyard outside and in the garden beyond the house. His prints, those which are not stacked on the walls of his studio, are contained in ex-government document drawers, his tools are laid out to hand, his glasses tucked into the top pocket of his checked shirt.

So what subjects inspire him? The answer is as broad as it is long. A lover of nature and a keen gardener, walker and naturalist (he puts this down to his farmer's son roots) he has made prints of the fells of northern Britain and Ireland (which are stunning and displayed next door to his workshop), of his garden, the plants, hedges and trees he sees from his studio. These are particularly striking when covered in snow, but he is also inspired by landscapes, by a piece of wood or by subtle shifts in light. He is a member of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, of Greenpeace and of Friends of the Earth.

"I see value in preserving the rural landscape. Natural life is important," he says. Yet the buildings of Oxford also inspire and delight him; he has been the artist-in-residence at St John's College, Oxford, and was working on a view through the gateway on the day we met; he has felt moved by the play of light on the windows of his house and appreciates modern structures in London. He created a remarkable view of the London Eye during construction - it lost its attraction once erected - but he found it fascinating while it was being built.

So why didn't a career in architecture or design appeal to him? "I was keen on architecture," he explains. "But I assumed you had to be awfully mathematical - though I now know that not to be the case. Besides, I'm a solitary worker and it would have meant working in an office environment. And only about 10 per cent of architecture is creative, the rest of it is commercial, getting planning permission, that sort of thing. I ended up taking a degree in English at the University of the South, Tennessee."

If he puts his love of nature down to his father, he attributes his artistic talent to his mother and her side of the family. They too were craftsmen, who went to America in the 1740s. It's to this branch that he also attributes his love of England.

Despite the early origins of his craft - printmaking is thought to stem from silversmiths or armourers who printed from their metal engravings on swords and breastplates by covering them with ink before pressing them on to cloth or paper - Joseph is a man who keeps an eye on the modern world. He has strong views against the Iraqi War and he is an active exhibitor at the Bankside Gallery in London, close to the Tate Modern, which is the gallery of the Royal Watercolour Society as well as the RE. Throughout the December the gallery will be staging an exhibition of miniature pictures, with prices ranging from £25 to £2000. Its November exhibition explored the relationship between Radio 4 and the creative process. It's not a liaison this quiet man enjoys, but he is a solitary creature when working and I get the impression that he breathes a sigh of relief once our interview is over. He can take up his tools and return to his silent studio once more.

Joseph Winkelman can be contacted at 69, Old High Street, Headington, Oxford. Tel: 01865 762839. The Bankside Gallery, tel: 0207 928 7521. www.banksidegallery.com