Layered Botanical Linocuts

Location	Leicester Print Workshop
Date & Time	Saturday 7th, Sunday 8th & Monday 9th October 2023 10.00am - 4.00pm
Experience	Beginner
Tutor	Mandeep Dhadialla

Explore colour and light creating playful botanical landscapes as print sketches.

This three day course invites participants to experiment with layering by combining simple printmaking techniques connecting with vivid colour palettes and form. Experience botanical elements as a landscape through textures, simple lines, colour blocks and quiet mark making.

Introducing your own interpretation of colour and light play you can bring in your individual interpretation of stillness to the prints. During the course you will indulge in creating playful landscape prints experimenting with inking lino blocks in a monotype painterly technique, with the opportunity of working on top of your image with mono-etching and wax crayons, and incorporating a simple shaped collagraph plate printed as an additional blind embossed layer.

There will be the option to turn some of your prints into single-paper ‘flower books’. Participants are welcome to bring along their own sketchbook to work from ideas if they wish to, or a reference image or drawing, although a selection of visuals will be provided as a starting point for your prints.

Guidance and support will be on hand throughout from the tutor as well as encouraged shared learning between the group. The course will include a demonstrations of linocut tool handling through a simple and mindful mark-making exercise to help inform designs, and discussions about planning before you print, mono-etching and creating collagraph plates.

The course is suitable for beginners to those interested in playing with print and combining techniques and mediums.

Course Structure

Day 1

• Demonstration of linocut tool handling
• Simple and mindful mark-making exercise to help inform designs
• Create shaped linocut blocks with mark-making patterns and designs
• Discussions about planning landscape layouts before you print
• Demonstration of inking blocks in a monotype painterly method
• Printing playful landscapes experimenting with inking lino blocks in a monotype painterly technique to begin building a small body of work.
• The work will be allowed to dry overnight.

Day 2

• Demonstration of mono-etching
• Working on top of the linocut landscapes with mono-etching
• Introduce pockets of colour blocks to the prints with wax crayons
• Demonstration on making a collagraph plate, with discussions about planning collagraph plates layouts on your prints
• Create shaped collagraph plates
• The work and collagraph plates will be allowed to dry overnight.

Day 3

• Demonstration of printing collagraph plates as a blind emboss layer
• Printing collagraph plates on prints as blind emboss layer
• Demonstration of transforming print/s into a single-paper book
• Select one or more print/s to work into single-paper flower book
• Sharing work with the group about print works created
• Tidy up and evaluation

About the Tutor 

Mandeep Dhadialla is an artist printmaker living in Leicester. Her work draws inspiration from her childhood in Kenya and migrating to England in her early teens. Mandeep’s fascination with exploring how people and the landscape are in an interconnected exchange are reflected through colour and light play. Her current body of work examines how landscape provides a source of constant anchoring between inner emotional and outer physical displacement as prints and sketches which often incorporate vivid colour palettes to reflect inner/outer connection as glowing light and luminosity, seeking out the hidden colours to the forefront. Mandeep teaches printmaking and bookmaking workshops and exhibits nationally and is a member of Leicester Print Workshop and Leicester Society of Artists.