MEET THEMAKER ETSY FULL
MEET THEMAKER ETSY FREE

Funnily enough, I really wasn’t into linocut at that point – I was determined to master screen printing because it felt much better suited to working as a graphic designer (which is what I hoped to do when I left – I was a 27-year-old career changer, taking a year out from my previous work in tech start-ups to retrain).

MEET THEMAKER ETSY FREE

I signed up for every session I could so I could try out all the different processes, and spent a lot of my free time down there.

MEET THEMAKER ETSY FULL

They had a set of amazing basement workshops full of old letterpress machines and hulking great cast iron presses. I’m mostly self-taught, although I did a foundation year in 2010 at London College of Communication (which used to be the training ground for typesetters and the newspaper print industry). Once carved, I’ll run a few test prints, clean up any unwanted marks from the blocks, decide on paper dimensions (more test prints), colour/s (yet more test prints) and then get busy with the run! Some details don’t get decided on until after I’ve carved a good portion of the block – I like to wait for the perfect idea to present itself naturally, rather than forcing it at the start, and I don’t mind having some unknowns as I carve. I fix the design on the block by redrawing it with permanent ink (I like Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens), reworking and refining the details and composition as I go. I don’t use anything fancy – just and HB pencil and some tracing paper. If one of these looks promising, I usually work it up in a little more detail before either moving to the block to flesh it out at full scale, or, for particularly nervewracking pieces, developing a full-size sketch on paper that I then trace and transfer in reverse to the block. I don’t work much in sketchbooks – I tend to seize upon ideas from nowhere and scribble quick thumbnail sketches on whatever scrap paper I have to hand before they get away. I’m slow and precise when designing and carving, then fast and messy when printing. That fell by the wayside when I realised how much I loved linocut, and how much easier it is to accommodate a press at home than a kiln. I was keen to make my living as a creative working on my own terms in order to find some kind of genuine work/life balance, but I had originally envisaged starting a business designing ceramic homewares. I make quirky, story-filled linocut prints… I came to printmaking late, and almost by accident, following the birth of my daughter in 2015.

I’m Kat, and I’m a designer/printmaker from Aberdeen, now living and working in South East London. JHow to Block Print onto Fabric with Speedball Fabric Block Printing Ink.Squeegees, Scoop Coaters and Hinge Clamps.

Meet themaker etsy