Spring Stamps

Create your own unique and beautiful shaped lino cut plates and stamps in this exciting half-day printmaking workshop.

Explore working intuitively and organically to build up an original composition for your print. Suitable for absolute beginners or those with some experience who love printmaking, tutor Jo will take you through the lino printing process step by step:

• How to use cutting tools safely and effectively.
• How to print plates with a variety of inks, papers and printing processes.
• How to create shaped plates/stamps and build up a composition

You’ll be introduced to the basic tools through demonstration and will learn how to carve lino exploring the use of mark making with one-to-one help. You’ll 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 then learn how to cut a shape from the lino. Experiment with materials needed to ink up a plate and how take a print by hand, using techniques such as overlapping plates, rotating and offsetting. Everyone will produce a series of prints on paper to take home at the end of the workshop.

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 half-day workshop will run on Saturday 28 March 2026, 10.30am-1.30pm. Our café will be open or you are welcome to bring your own refreshments.

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

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 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).