Quirky Workshops - lino cutting

Last year I met with Annie, of Quirky Workshops in Greystoke, to discuss some potential workshops. Saturday was my first time teaching in this gorgeous venue where participants (and me!) are treated to not only a quality workshop, but tea,coffee, biscuits; lunch and scones and tea. We had an excellent day with some great work being produced - click here for more information about Quirky Workshops

All set up and ready to go...

After a PowerPoint about lino cutting, including history, techniques and inspiration we looked at the huts at the back of Port Mulgrave beach in North Yorkshire. 

I modelled different approaches to the same scene...

...and we produced a collaborative piece of work that gave everyone the chance to try different tools and experience both Soft Sculpt and traditional lino. 

After lunch everyone began work on their own buildings ...

Interestingly for me, we found that we ended up printing with my good old-fashioned oil-based inks rather than the Calagio Safewash and water based inks, as when you are trying to print off a lot of prints at the end of the day the latter two were liable to slip in the press creating a slightly blurred image  - not so with the oil-based relief ink - but of course it's harder to clean up. Having said that the Calagio Safewash worked perfectly at home when I was testing it  - maybe I was working more slowly when taking prints.