Our open plan studio is fully equipped with facilities and expertise in Intaglio (including Etching, Aquatint, Mezzotint, Drypoint, Collagraph, Photo Etching and Solar Plate); Relief (including Wood Cut, Lino Cut, Wood Engraving, Letterpress); Screenprinting (including textiles); Lithography (including stone and photo plate lithography); Monoprint/monotype and framing.
The workshop is run by an experienced staff of expert artist printmakers who can provide guidance and technical advice on all aspects of printmaking.
Before you use the studio for the first time, we need to know that you have some level of technical knowledge and confidence. This can either be something you have acquired through previous experience, or by attending some of our courses or one-to-one teaching sessions. Both are aimed at giving you the freedom to use our facilities to their fullest and become part of the LPW community. To find out about open access and membership options, please see here.
Booking isn't essential for most techniques. However, to use the lithography direct and offset presses we would ask you to email or ring to book a slot. To book or find out more about the various processes contact the following: info@leicesterprintworkshop.com
Relief print techniques include woodcut, linocut, letterpress and rubberstamping and requires the artist to cut their design into a flat surface (wood or lino) to remove the areas they want to remain white and leaving the surface of the block uncut where ink is to be printed. The raised areas of the printing surface are inked using a roller and either passed through a press under pressure, or hand burnished, to transfer the ink to the paper.
Intaglio comes from the Italian word intagliare meaning ‘to incise’ and is the general name for etching, engraving, aquatint, drypoint etc. which describes the process of printing from the lower surface of a block plate.
The plate is prepared using one of the above methods, the ink is forced into the incisions, the surface of the plate is cleaned off, and the plate and damp paper are rolled through the press under great pressure to transfer the ink onto paper.
Screenprinting originated in China (around AD 221) as a way of transferring designs onto fabrics. A woven fabric is stretched over a screen, the stencilled image is blocked out through a number of techniques including stencilled paper and photographic emulsion, and a squeegee is used to press ink through the unblocked area of the screen, directly onto to paper or fabric.
Invented by Aloys Senefelder in Germany 1796, through experimenting with finding a cheap method to reproduce musical scores, lithography (from the Greek: lithos – stone, and graphein – to write) is a planographic printmaking technique.
Monoprinting is when just one impression is taken no matter what technique is used and is a single printing of an image incapable of being identically printed again; the most common technique involves painting or rolling an image on glass, perspex or metal.
Materials for screenprinting onto textiles includes calico, padded boards and tabletops, flock, foil and puff binder as well as disperse dyes.
Services
We offer a museum standard commercial framing service, with a choice of mouldings, stains and mounts, up to A1 sized frames.
Please get in touch via info@leicesterprintwokshop.com or 0116 251 4174 to discuss framing preferences for your artwork or drop in during opening hours.
Framing Room
LPW members are encouraged to use the framing room once they have had a framing induction.
Please get in touch via info@leicesterprintwokshop.com or 0116 251 4174 to book an induction or framing room slot.