Catcliffe Primary Visit and Lino Workshop

On the 7th of June we made a visit to Catcliffe Primary School to show the Y6 students the wondrous technique that is lino printing. With us came Ashleigh Lofthouse, Nicole Nixon, Bushra Mahmood, Laura Turner and Katie Hamilton-Midlane who kindly volunteered to join us and help out. We decided to create two unique wall hangings, and to do this we asked the students to tell us what art meant to them, and the word they chose could be carved, printed and then attached to the fabric surrounding our own 'We need art because it is...' lino prints. These wonderfully enthusiastic students came up with some brilliant words to describe why art is important; 'Messy', 'Unique', 'Freaky', 'Inspirational' and so many more! We gave them the choice of freehand or using letter stencils to draw their word, but they didn't just leave it there! We had students taking initiative and including all sorts of other decorations like smiley faces, flowers, borders and my personal favourite... '#art#'.

Once these were traced on, we gave them a quick demonstration on how to use the lino cutters, and within no time at all they were loving it! Thankfully we only had about 5 lino cutter injuries... but even then, as one of the pupils remarked, "it was worth the cut". We had some wonderful comments from the class about how lino was their new favourite way of making art and they wanted to do it at home, how they wanted to be artists when they were older, and just generally all saying they were really enjoying the experience. 

And their ambition didn't stop at just drawing! As soon as we got the inks out we had pupils asking if they could make their prints "ombre", mixing up a variety of colours, and the most popular amongst everyone seemed to be rainbow striped prints! We asked the class to do one print on paper that they could take home with them, and two on fabric for us to put on each wall hanging. 

By the end our hangings were looking absolutely fabulous! Laura, Ashleigh, Nicole, Katie and Bushra did an amazing job showing the kids how to use the equipment properly, keeping everything in order (thanks Ashleigh for all that washing up!), and just generally being absolute stars! We have brought the fabric back with us so everything can be properly sewn together, and once they're ready we can send one back to Catcliffe for the students, and they can see all their lovely work displayed up on the wall. We had such an enjoyable morning and it was great to see the pupils so excited about art and being so creative. Thanks for having us!