I Ran a Fruit-Themed Lino Printing Workshop!

In June I helped organise an art market themed around food, and used the opportunity to give myself experience hosting a workshop! 

I wanted to figure out how to theme, design, and host the whole experience, while making it available for children as well to make it a fun and casual time.

As the art market was themed around food I thought it would be fun to narrow down the lino printing workshop to focus on an even smaller category. Before that I was trying to make lino designs of all sorts of food and it felt so scattered. 

By narrowing down and adding constraints I was better able to work creatively. I then decided to design my first ever multi-layered lino prints, and make it even more complicated by having one of the layers combine with an option of different fruit designs! I had to recarve many times before I realised that using a blocking screen would be better than making sure each design perfectly lined up. 

This meant that a lot of the workshop prep was creating a registration rig, one that people can slot the paper into so that everything they wanted would line up exactly as needed and still work every time. I had no idea such pre-planning would be needed!

I was aware that lino printing was an effort of logical alignment and following of steps - but the idea that I had to make it very clear to someone who has never interacted with relief printing made me create a much cleaner and clearer process. It made me wonder why I had been printing on hard-mode all this time by eyeballing most alingments and potentially getting it wrong many times!

The day came and while I was a bit distracted and chaotic due to the multitasking of the day, I had such a blast hosting the workshop for those who came! It was so fun and I felt like I was able to really clearly explain every step. 

It was such a fun and enriching experience for me, I can only hope I was able to make it as good for everyone who was kind enough to take part in the workshop! Thank you!