Shrewsbury Museum & Art Gallery, Reduction Lino Printing workshop

Last week I was based at Shrewsbury Museum & Art Gallery with printmaker Christine Bradshaw where we ran a two day print workshop with art foundation students from Shrewsbury College.  As part of my work being exhibited at the museum I devised the workshop to enable students to explore printmaking skills and techniques that they may not receive during their course and for students who wished to specialise in printmaking.  I particularly wanted them to work with and be inspired by objects in Shrewsbury Museum as the collection is a rich source of inspiration and also for them to get to know the museum so that they may use its resources in the future.

Above is a photo of the Old Market Hall in Shrewsbury which is the view from the education room in the museum where the workshop was held.  The students had a short tour of the museum and then were to choose an object that they felt drawn towards, sketch and take photos of it.  Here are some of the objects they chose:

Then it was back to the education room to discuss how to start thinking about the separation of colour layers for printing three colous and then to start cutting their blocks.  We used Japanese silk vinyl instead of the traditional grey lino to cut the blocks: 

Prints of the objects, at different stages of the printmaking process: