Hiya, I’m Aurore Swithenbank, a printmaker living in South East London with my partner and cute cat. I moved to London when I was 10 from France and haven’t looked back since.  Describe your printmaking process.  My printmaking method is linocut. I plan most of my designs with lots of drawings in my sketchbooks or a big pad of paper. I then transfer my designs onto the lino, ready to carve with my tools. Most of my prints are hand burnished onto beautiful handmade paper and then hung on a lovely washing line in the studio for drying. How and where did you learn to print?  I am self-taught with lino printmaking, but I did learn how to print in my art and design foundation at City Lit and my Illustration degree in Bristol. While studying in both places, I experimented with completely different printing processes, including collagraph and monotype. I did try a bit of linocut here and there, but it didn’t suit my projects at the time, and it’s only after I graduated that I found some lino scraps in my art box that I decided to give it another go. I designed some Christmas cards for my mum, and I instantly fell in love with the printing process. From then on, I just got stuck in and practised most days in my bedroom at the time living with my mum. I remember saving up for a few weeks to buy my first set of good pfeil lino tools in a beautiful art shop called L. Cornelissen & Son in central London. With lots of trial and error, I found my style. Lino printing is a big part of my life now, and I’ll always find time to dive into it. Why printmaking?  I think any printmaking technique is a beautiful craft, but especially linocut. It’s accessible and such a playful medium. The process is so meditative and slow, especially in such a fast-paced society. I also love how you can’t really see the results of how the image/print is going to truly look until the last process with the print reveal. I find this very exciting and addictive. Linocut can also be forgiving at times; if I make a mistake with carving, I can usually turn it into a different pattern. Where do you work? I work at home in my shared studio room with my partner (and sometimes my howling cat who begs to come in and sit at my desk). I’m very lucky to have my desk space in front of the window, which looks out at the back of the house into our local park where I can watch birds and butterflies go past most days. Describe a typical day in your studio.  I usually have a part-time job, so most days off and weekends are spent in the studio. On those days, I start the morning with a lovely cup of green tea and either packing orders or going over my to-do list and tidying up the space. I then either print, carve or sketch for the rest of the day. I leave the admin stuff for the evenings when the natural light is gone.  How long have you been printmaking?  I’d say my journey with linocut started when I made the Christmas cards for my mum in 2016, so it’s been 8 years of my printing journey. I started it more as a hobby, and I was lucky to have friends and family who encouraged me to take it further and make it more of a career. I had connections that led me to do markets and fairs before I took it further and started selling my art online in 2019. What inspires you?  My inspiration comes from lots of different places, from the flora and fauna I see on walks and bird watching with my partner, holidays abroad to also pottering in galleries and museums in London. I moved around a lot when I was younger and was exposed to such different climates with nature, that when I moved to London it was very exciting at first but I think I missed the element of nature and how exposed I was to it.  Looking closely, I realised there is a lot of nature in London hidden amongst it all and drawing/creating lino prints bought a sense of calm in such a chaotic city. My inspiration can come from literally seeing a butterfly pass me in a park to sketching an artefact in a museum. I also love following the different seasons and get inspired by the different types of flora and fauna that come out each month. When I’m stuck for ideas, I love roaming around the free museums in London or flick through my collection of art books. I’d also say my lino prints have a bit of mystical and folklore aspects to them, that I hope can bring a bit of magic to someone’s home. What is your favourite printmaking product?  One of my favourite printmaking products is my glass slab that I roll my ink onto. I love hearing the hissing noise of the ink being rolled out and it’s always satisfying cleaning the glass after a productive printing day. I also can’t live without my Pfeil tools, especially when they are sharpened they cut the lino like butter and it makes the process so much more fun. What have you made that you are most proud of?  I recently printed on fabric and made wall hangings. I picked two of my favourite designs that are a swallow and a pomegranate. I am not a seamstress, so this was a lovely collaboration with my partner’s mum who is very talented in that area. Printing on fabric is so different from paper, so I was very nervous at first, but we found some lovely linen that worked perfectly for printing. Collaborating with someone is very special and I would love to do more projects like this in the future.  Where can we see your work? Where do you sell?  You can find my lino prints online in my Esty store and you can follow my process on my Instagram . I also sell my prints at lots of different markets and fairs all year round which I announce on social media or on my website. I am hoping to extend my little business and hoping to get my art in more shops this year, so watch this space!  What will we be seeing from you next?  I would love to experiment more with printing on fabric in the next year. After making my wall hangings, I feel like its opened a whole new world of possibilities and I’d love to make pillows, tea towels and patches.  Do you have any advice for other printmakers and creatives?  Experiment and persevere! Experimenting with the process is the best way to understand not only yourself as an artist, but the technique you are looking to dive into. I think with social media these days, its easy to quickly find out what materials are best to use, but just because you are buying the same art materials doesn’t mean the art will turn out the same quality. Experimenting with different types of paper, inks and even barens is all key to figuring out your own artistic voice. I had to go through so much trial and error to find the materials that suited me best and it’s so important to keep playing around until you find this. Perseverance is key with linocut. Trying a new craft can be so daunting, but the more you do it the better you get at it. Although linocut at times can be so challenging, just trust the process and keep going!

I’m an illustrator and printmaker based in Portsmouth, Hampshire. I’m inspired by nostalgic storybooks and I love to create whimsical hand-printed illustrations. I used to work part-time at Handprinted, but in November 2024 I decided to give being a full-time artist a try! It’s only been a few months so far, but I’m really enjoying giving 100% of my time to my art practice.   In my studio with my Adana 8x5 printing press Describe your printmaking process. I mostly work with linocut, and currently I’m favouring combining multiblock with reduction. I start out with a drawing, which I will draft a few times before putting the final sketch onto the block. I cut my blocks quite slowly with a lot of control, but I leave a lot of things to chance. Rather than having a full idea of the marks I’ll make, I’ll work textures out on the block. This way, I find my final prints are always very different from my sketches, and there’s a depth in there that I can’t achieve with just pencil or pen. Sketching process for ‘Take Flight with Me’ How and where did you learn to print? I studied illustration at the University of Portsmouth, where I had an induction to learn printmaking techniques. I dabbled in linocut and screen-printing during my degree - but I’m ashamed to say I didn’t make good use of the facilities back then! I think I maybe made three linocuts in my time there?  I graduated in 2011 and I picked up linocut again in 2014. Since then, I’ve been on various courses to develop my linocut skills. I’ve also taken courses in wood engraving, etching, screenprinting and collagraph. After trying other methods, I always came back to linocut with a different set of eyes, ready to push the medium even more. A comparison on how my skills have improved over the years  Why printmaking? Printmaking is a tried and tested medium for storytelling. As an illustrator obsessed with nostalgic imagery found in storybooks and fairy tales, it makes perfect sense for me to use printmaking for my illustrations. I also find linocut very therapeutic and meditative. I can get lost in the process and I think it’s my way of being mindful and finding some inner peace. Although I find the printing part stressful at times! ‘The Song of Seven Thousand’ Linocut - based on the Brothers Grimm fairytale ‘Jorinde and Joringel’  Where do you work? For the last 1.8 years, I’ve been working from a beautiful studio space at Hotwalls Studios in Portsmouth. It’s a stone's throw away from the beach, and it’s nestled in the old part of Portsmouth where you can still see lots of historical buildings.  The Hotwalls site was built in 1680 and was part of the city’s military defence against sea invaders. The archways below the Hotwalls ramparts used to house soldiers, but in 2016 the site was redeveloped into artists studios. Now each archway is occupied by an artist! The studio is public facing and open to visitors. It provides me a great space to work from, but also to meet people and be able to demonstrate my process. It’s great that I’m able to show how my work is made to curious onlookers. But also, having a flow of people can be challenging at times, so I’ve adapted my way of working and I save certain tasks for when it’s quieter.  Inside the studio, I have all my equipment, tools and presses (an Adana 8x5 and an Ironbridge Etching Press). I also have a selection of my work for sale and on display. It’s also where I host linocut workshops as well as a social Print Club. If I need to do any screen printing, I often book Handprinted’s studio for open access. It’s great that I can access all the facilities there, as I’m not able to set myself up for screen printing at my own studio. Inside my studio at Hotwalls in Portsmouth, all set up for hosting a workshop Outside my studio at Hotwalls in Portsmouth - formerly living quarters for soldiers Describe a typical day in your studio. During the week, I have slow mornings at home; taking my time to prioritise my tasks and do some admin. By 11am, I’m at the studio and ready to do some carving or printing. I try to put in a good few hours of practical work, before heading home around 5 or 6. My evenings are spent on the sofa either sketching, doing a few admin tasks or editing videos. Saturday mornings are usually spent teaching linocut workshops in my studio, and Saturday evenings I host Print Club. It’s a social evening, providing the opportunity for printmakers to meet, socialise and chat, get a bit of work done and ask technical questions for their printmaking problems. During the week, I also spend a day or two working from home; usually on marketing and stocking. I find these tasks are best done at home without the interruptions I get in my studio. My marketing day is spent making content for social media, my website and newsletters. A stocking day will see me prepping work for galleries, stockists and events - so lots of framing!  Working in the studio  How long have you been printmaking? After I graduated in 2011, I got a job working in graphic design and marketing. By 2014 I was starting to get tired of using computers all the time, and I wanted to do something creative with my hands. I thought back to my university days and linocut stood out to me as something I enjoyed and could easily do at home. I decided to invest in some linocut tools - and the rest is history? In the beginning I mostly printed for fun, but in 2021 I started to take it more seriously and decided to launch my business. Alphabet Linocut - Letter ‘I’  What inspires you? I source my ideas from fairy tales, delving into their obscure and sometimes darker origins. These books are often full of beautiful illustrations, which are usually created using printmaking techniques such as etchings or woodcuts. I find the Golden Age of Illustration very inspiring - a period of illustration dating between 1850 and 1925 which was heavily influenced by Art Nouveau, Pre-Raphaelite, and the Arts & Crafts movements - all of which I adore too. I also take a lot of inspiration from mediaeval artworks and architecture. ‘Joy Bringer’ Linocut - based on the nursery rhyme ‘Sing a Song of Sixpence’ What is your favourite printmaking product? I love my Karol Pomykala Dot Tool! I’m often asked how I make the tonal marks in my work, and it’s all down to this tool. It’s hard work when you have a large area to do, but I can’t achieve this tonal effect with my other blades and tools.  Lately I’m really enjoying using a hangito to take out hairline slices of lino. The Gokubosomaru and the Very Fine V Tool are also big favourites of mine. I work very detailed, and these tools enable me to make the slightest of marks. I’m also a big fan of Hawthorn Stay Open inks - I love how these don’t skin and still seem fresh two years later! ‘Take Flight With Me’ Linocut in progress, featuring the Gokubosomaru tool  What have you made that you are most proud of? It’s hard to choose a single piece, I always think my latest piece is what I’m most proud of! Every time I finish something, I feel like I’ve levelled up in some small way, and I carry that forward into the next linocut. My latest linocut ‘Call to Adventure’ really challenged me. It is 10-layer multiblock reduction; one key block, one block using caustic soda, and a third block for reduction. I pushed myself to finish it within two weeks - there was one day when I printed three layers in a row! It’s always risky using multiple blocks, the fear of mis-registration makes me hold my breath every time I pull a new layer from the press. I started out with 30, expecting to lose a few along the way - but the print gods worked in my favour and I was able to print all 30 successfully!  I guess the hard work paid off, when I entered ‘Call to Adventure’ into the St Barbe Open Call 2025. Not only was it selected, but it also achieved ‘Highly Commended’! The St Barbe Open Call show in Lymington is running until the 26th April. ‘Call to Adventure’ Linocut  Where can we see your work? Where do you sell? You can come visit me at Hotwalls Studios in Portsmouth. I’m open to the public, usually Tuesday through to Saturday. The best time to come is the first Sunday of the month, when we have our ‘Open Studios’ and every artist archway is open.  I also sell on my website, or you can find me on Instagram and Facebook. I regularly attend events and exhibitions around the UK. Look for updates on my social media, or you can sign up to my newsletter to be notified when I’m out and about. My next few events include the Hotwalls Spring Market, Printworks Festival at Farnham Maltings, Winchester Print Fair, and Craft in Focus at Hever Castle. My work is also with a few stockists around the UK, including Forest & Cove in Romsey, Llantarnam Grange in Cwmbran, New Brewery Arts in Cirencester and The Craft Centre and Design Gallery in Leeds. My most recent set up at the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair  What will we be seeing from you next? I’ve got an itch to deep-dive into some fairy tale illustration, and I’m considering a 6-month project with the aim of producing a body of work around the stories collected by the Brothers Grimm.  I’m also currently experimenting with collagraph, and how to combine this printmaking method with linocut.  From the summer, I’m starting to upscale my linocut workshops, and I will be hosting them in a larger venue, next door to my studio. I’m also delivering some workshops externally for other art groups and organisations. ‘Take Flight with Me’ Linocut - based on the Brothers Grimm fairytale ‘The Six Swans’  Do you have any advice for other printmakers and creatives? Show up every day and do something that progresses your creative practice forward. Even if it’s just one task, or only 20 minutes that you can spare. Do it every day, build a habit, and those small steps you take will start to feel like a sprint! Also, if you have access to printmaking facilities, either at your school, university or local area - please use them! It’s the best way to meet other creatives, bounce ideas around, get some feedback and find the support you need as a creative. ‘Star Catcher’ Linocut Block —To see more from Frankie, follow her on Instagram or Facebook - or sign up to her newsletter. Or you can visit her studio in Portsmouth: Studio 4, Hotwalls Studios, Old Portsmouth, PO1 2FS

Monoprinting using an open screen is a wonderfully creative way of using your screen printing equipment for speedy, painterly prints. Neocolor Pastels are a great material to use when mono screen printing - you can draw directly onto the mesh and print your drawing through the screen.  A 90T screen is ideal for printing onto paper. Arranging your screen on a hinged board helps you to register your prints, whilst holding the mesh the perfect distance from the paper when printing. We're printing onto cards, just in time for Mothers' Day! With the screen on a hinged board, lay something small under one corner (like a pencil) to hold the mesh slightly further away from the board underneath. Use the NeoColor pastels to draw directly onto the open mesh screen. We have used parcel tape on the back of the mesh to mask out an area an appropriate size for printing onto a card. You don't need to fill the whole mesh area if you don't want to.  When the design is finished, apply a well of Acrylic Screen Printing Medium above the design.  Use a squeegee at a 45 degree angle to push the medium through the mesh and on to the paper underneath.  On the first print, some of the pastel may act as a resist, giving you interesting marks and textures.  Some pastel will remain in the mesh, so print again onto another piece of paper to get another print. Each one will give a slightly different strength of colour and texture. If you're using the same medium to take a print each time, it will become muddy with the colours from the pastels, giving a coloured background - you can either embrace this, or replace the medium on the screen regularly. When you're finished with the design, wash it off with a soft sponge and cold water. Wait for the mesh to dry, and then go again with a new design! For this project you will need: Neocolor Pastels 90T screen Hinged Board and Hinge Clamps Squeegee System 3 Acrylic Printing Medium Spatula Paper to print on - we used cards  Soft Sponge to clean

I’m Fei, a printmaker and designer working in Beijing. I make cards, prints, and run workshops in the city.  I have a day job as a brand designer, and I use my spare time to grow my printmaking practice.  Describe your printmaking process. I start with simple sketches in my head or on my sketchbook, if an idea keeps coming back, I will realize it by creating it into a design. I then transfer the best design onto a piece of lino block, and start carving. Usually the majority of the heavy-lifting is done at sketching stage, so I let myself enjoy the comfort of carving, often with a podcast and a pot of tea next to me. How and where did you learn to print? I studied printmaking and illustration at university. It felt natural to me, using a gouge, pushingmy way through the material. Why printmaking? It felt like the sweet intersection of control and spontaneity. Printmaking loves to create unexpected shapes, textures, and surprising results, it's a lot like watercolours, you need to havefun with it, if you control it too much it will lose life, if you accept the flow of the medium, itrewards you with abundant amazingness. I never get tired of seeing what the result/processoffers me, no matter how much I plan every step, there is always surprise.  Where do you work? I work in Beijing, China. Describe a typical day in your studio. I divide my process into carving days and printing days. In printing days I would first cut paper, Iuse rolls of luscious Japanese hand-made printmaking paper 90cm by 70cm, I make editions of8-10 prints, size 50x50cm, so I spend almost a day just cutting paper. Then I would pull out thebig roller, hand print and burnish every edition. I stop after all the paper is finished or there's no wall space left in my small loft studio. How long have you been printmaking? 8 years or so of constant effort. What inspires you? I'm inspired by textures, odd shapes, organic, rough-on-the-edges things and un-finished things.Such as odd looking gourds, uneven pottery, etc. What is your favourite printmaking product? I recently created a piece about my neighborhood, I live in a metropolitan of 22M people, it'shome to countless ancient archetectures with rich history. One of the historic sites is Drum &Bell towers around where I live. They are more than 750 years old, that's how people used to telltime by listening to the drum and bells ring. This piece is my favourite because I did the leastamount of planning, I just painted with an ink brush onto the lino, then started carving. It felt like something unique to me. It shows how my mind thinks, filled with visual details, nature and man-made objects blending into each other, losing their boundaries. What have you made that you are most proud of? This relates to my printmaking practice, but not a printmaking product. Sometime ago I spent afew days in south west of China, learing yet another of my favourite techniques, batik dye. It wasa 7-day course condensed into 3 due to lack of time. I spent the first 2 days learning how toindigo dye using threads, then the 3rd day the teacher introduced me to batik. I felt something erupting out of my chest due to excitement. I love drawing, so I lost all concept of time and sense of self, batiking from morning to late night. Where can we see your work? Where do you sell? My instagram is @feifeiart, I sell mostly in China, but if you see something you like on my page, my DM is open. What will we be seeing from you next? Probably more batik :P, and larger scale prints. Do you have any advice for other printmakers and creatives? Art is a devotional act. Your purpose is to produce the best work you can and leave others to judge. Feel stuck? Look within, you have the answer, you are just looking at the wrong place. To see more from Fei follow her on Instagram