Make Your Mark: Printmaking

Online booking will be available on Monday 2 March.

An exciting 10-week printmaking course focused on experimentation and play.

Working in either mono-print, linocut or collagraph or a combination of techniques, you will develop your use of mark-making, colour, layering, and registration through guided demonstrations and studio time.

This course aims to build confidence in your printmaking skills, encourage you to take creative risks with your themes and processes and create a vibrant series of prints. It is ideal for total beginners and those with some experience of print making who would like to develop their skills and/or explore new techniques.

Over the 10 weeks you will:

• Build practical skills in monoprinting, lino printing, collagraphs, and combined techniques
• Experiment with texture, colour, layering, and expressive mark-making
• Develop a cohesive, personal body of work
• Refine ideas through feedback and reflection
• Create a series of prints that displays your creative voice

Week 1:

Introduction to the course, print studio, and materials. Tutor Jo will provide demonstrations to introduce basic printmaking processes, safe tool handling, and mark-making through experimental methods, then you’ll begin visual and tactile research using a range of tools, textures, and surfaces to explore printed mark.

Week 2:

Exercises will focus on developing marks through print processes, exploring how tools, pressure, and materials affect printed outcomes. You’ll experiment with plates/blocks and surfaces, building confidence in handling print materials, with individual guidance.

Week 3:

Jo will introduce colour theory, tonal variation, and layered printing techniques. You’ll explore opacity, transparency, and overprinting through guided practical activities, supported by demonstrations and one-to-one feedback.

Week 4:

Looking at composition, repetition, scale, and registration. You’ll translate your exploratory work into more intentional print designs, planning images for repeat, pattern, or small editions through structured print tasks.

Week 5:

Refining plates/blocks, improving consistency, and developing variation within printed outcomes. You’ll deepen your technical control through sustained printing, experimenting with ink application, pressure, and subtle adjustments.

Week 6:

Exploring building texture and depth through layered printing, surface manipulation, and mixed techniques. You’ll be encouraged to take creative risks, combining methods to push the expressive potential of print.

Week 7:

Discussion and demonstrations explore combining printmaking approaches and developing a personal visual language. You’ll make informed technical choices, supported by individual guidance, to strengthen intention and consistency.

Week 8:

Experimental approaches to printing, focusing on pushing materials, processes, and methods beyond initial outcomes. You’ll test unconventional inking, pressure, registration, and layering, working between control and chance. Emphasis is placed on proofing as a tool for discovery, allowing unexpected results to inform the development of a body of work.

Week 9:

Demonstrations will explore iterative printing, disruption of established methods, and purposeful variation. You’ll rework, overprint, alter, and combine prints, embracing accident and adaptation as part of the process. Attention will be given to selecting and refining experiments that hold visual and conceptual strength.

Week 10:

The final week focuses on completing a series of experimental prints and making thoughtful selections rather than producing a single ‘perfect’ outcome. Learners resolve work through editing, sequencing, and presentation, reflecting on how experimentation has shaped their practice. A tutor-led group critique supports discussion around process, risk-taking, and future development.

About the tutor:

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.

Further information:

This 10-week course will run on Tuesday afternoons, 1:30pm – 4:30pm, starting on 21 April, with the final session on 30 June 2026.

Please note: no session Tuesday 26 May 2026 (half term break).

All materials and equipment will be provided. Please come in old clothes and/or bring an apron as printing can get messy! We do have aprons to borrow too if you prefer.

Participants must be aged 14+. Under 18s must be accompanied by a paying adult at all times.

If the course/workshop you’d like to book is sold out, we do operate a waiting list – simply contact our box office team on 0116 252 2455 / arts-centre@le.ac.uk and ask to be added to the waiting list. We’ll then contact you if a place becomes available, with absolutely no obligation to accept it if you’ve made other plans!

Please ensure that you agree to our updated Terms & Conditions before booking as courses/workshops are non-refundable if cancelled within 21 days of the start date for any reason.

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).