Linocut Shaped Plates and Stamps

Create your own extraordinary plates and stamps in this exciting five-week course. Explore working intuitively and organically to build interesting compositions for your prints.

 Learn about the lino printing process and how to use cutting tools safely and effectively. Understand how to how to create shaped plates/stamps and build prints using a variety of inks, papers and printing processes.

Week One

Introduction to the basic tools through tutor demonstrations, and learn how to carve lino exploring the use of mark making. Explore the suitability of images for shaped plates and stamps that can be developed into a plate with a focus on strong shapes/outlines and learn how to cut a shape out of the lino. Experiment with materials needed to ink up a plate and how take a print by hand.

Week Two

Discuss and explore the use of multiple plates. Experiment with overlapping plates, rotating, and offsetting, gain an understanding of how to use a printing press and explore printing on different thickness papers.

Week Three

With tutor support, develop a design/theme for your print and begin creating your plates/stamps. Experiment with the printing process with a focus on colour mixing, and through discussion plan a colour palette, develop your first layers on your prints and discuss the importance of drying time between layers.

Week Four

Explore how to layer the second layer of your prints and print multiple colours. Discuss the process of working light to dark and dark to light and techniques used to layer colours. Experiment with gradients and the transparency/opacity of the inks.

Week Five

Understand how to create a series of prints and create the third layer of your prints using the techniques you have developed over the last few weeks. Explore the technique a Chine-collé through demonstration and how to apply it to your own prints. Discuss the possibilities of using lino to print onto other surfaces such as fabric, wrapping paper etc.

This course is suitable for complete beginners and those will a little experience of lino printing who would like to develop their skills further.

Tutor Jo Shearer is an artist and art educator living and working in Leicestershire. Her belief is that art is for everyone. It is another language for expressing and communicating our experiences, thoughts and emotions which often reflect the world around us and how we fit into it. Art can demonstrate a tremendous level of skill and be aesthetically pleasing; however, the greatest strength is in its capacity to express and unite people. Jo studied Visual BA (Hons) Arts and English Literature and a PGCE in secondary art. She taught in schools and colleges in Hertfordshire and Leicestershire for over 10 years. After leaving mainstream education she continued her love of teaching through tutoring and went on to develop workshops like this one. She enjoys the freedom to work in a variety of media and has an ever-increasing love for print. She enjoys nurturing creativity and developing individuals' skills to build confidence in their own work as well as evoking a sense of calm and release of emotions through the process of making. Her personal work explores the spaces that we inhabit, the collection of experiences and emotions that connect us to a place and the inherent beauty of the natural world in all its forms.

This is a five-week course starting on 28 February and ending on 28 March 2025. Each session is 3 hours long, 10am – 12.30pm.

All materials and equipment will be provided. Please dress in old clothes and/or bring an apron as printing can get messy!

Participants must be aged 16+. Under 18s must be accompanied by a paying adult at all times.

Please ensure that you agree to our updated Terms & Conditions before booking as courses/workshops are non-refundable in some circumstances.

We aim to make all our sessions as accessible as possible and carers/PAs are very welcome – just remember to book their free place when you book your session. If you'd like to talk to us in advance of booking or attending your sessions to discuss your access needs, our Box Office team is here to help! Email arts-centre@le.ac.uk, pop in or call 0116 252 2455, open 7 days a week.

We have four blue badge parking spaces outside Attenborough Arts Centre, plus double yellow line roadside parking very close to the building for blue badge holders for up to three hours if our parking spaces are occupied.

Free parking for all customers is available after 5pm on weekdays and all day at weekends in the University of Leicester car park next door to Attenborough Arts Centre on Lancaster Road. The closest public car park for parking at all other times is Victoria Park, 5-10 minutes walk from us (near De Montfort Hall).