This one-day course introduces you to linocut printmaking through the creation of your own hand-printed Christmas cards. Suitable for complete beginners, the workshop offers a practical and creative introduction to relief printing while giving you the opportunity to produce a set of unique cards to take home.

You’ll begin by learning about the essential tools, materials and safe working practices used in linocut. Through demonstrations and guided exercises, you’ll explore how to develop a simple image suitable for relief printing, considering positive and negative space, contrast, mark-making and how your design will appear when printed.

You’ll then transfer your chosen design onto lino and carve your block, learning how to use cutting tools safely and confidently to create different lines, marks and textures. Once your block is ready, you’ll experiment with inking and printing your design onto paper and card, making adjustments where necessary before producing a small set of finished Christmas cards.

Depending on time, you may also have the opportunity to create smaller lino stamps using simple festive motifs. These can be printed individually or repeated to create patterns for handmade wrapping paper, gift tags or other festive stationery.

By the end of the course, you’ll understand the complete process of designing, carving, inking and printing a simple linocut. You’ll leave with your own collection of hand-printed Christmas cards and the confidence to continue making linocut prints at home or in the studio.

Skills covered:

• Understanding linocut tools, materials and safe working practices
• Developing simple designs suitable for relief printing
• Transferring designs onto lino
• Carving and mark-making techniques
• Inking and hand-printing single-colour designs
• Creating repeat patterns using simple lino stamps

Outcomes – you will come away with:

• A set of your own hand-printed Christmas cards
• Your carved lino block, which can be reused to make further card
• Potentially, a small lino stamp and examples of printed wrapping paper or gift tags
• Confidence in the basic techniques of linocut and relief printing
• Ideas and skills for continuing to make printed cards and other paper goods independently

Included

On this course the College will supply some of the materials including:

• Printing paper (e.g., Somerset Satin 250 gsm)
• Lino plates (battleship grey lino + softcut lino)
• Relief inks (Safewash)
• Carving tools Ink rollers (brayers)
• Spatulas
• Tracing paper
• 4B–6B pencils

What students need to bring

Reference images or drawings for inspiration (simple, bold designs work best). The size of the linocut plate will be A6 (105 x 148 mm); this will be the maximum size for the design.

Additional information

Please wear appropriate clothing/aprons for the workshop or studio, this includes stout covered footwear (no sandals or open toes).

Student registration: 10am- 10.30am
Course teaching: 10.30am-4.30pm 
Morning session: 10.30am-1pm
Lunch break: 1pm-2pm (lunch is not included)
Afternoon session: 2pm-4.30pm (optional 15 minute break)
Teaching finishes: 4.30pm  
 

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