Birds in detail – a linocut printmaking weekend

** Cost of the workshop includes materials **

Elevate your printmaking skills and confidence in a beginner to intermediate workshop focused on capturing the natural forms and details of our feathered friends.

• Dates: 12 – 13 December 2026
• Days/Times: Saturday and Sunday, 9.30am – 4.00pm
• Venue: NatureArt Lab Studio, M16 Artspace, 21 Blaxland Crescent, Griffith

About the workshop 
This is a two-day workshop during which you will be guided through a series of exercises designed to develop your design and lino carving skills with a focus on avian subjects. 

On the first day, work on a couple of small introductory carvings to enhance your understanding of various bird features – for example, feathers, claws, and eyes – while building your confidence and familiarity with lino carving as a printmaking technique. Learn how to ink up and print your linocut pieces. On the second day, use your new understanding and experience to design, carve and print a complete bird linocut.

This workshop aims to develop your confidence in your observation skills, carving techniques, and your design approach, and you will complete the weekend with a series of prints on professional paper.

Learning Outcomes 

• Gain experience in the translation of observation (of bird features) into sketches, then carved into two-dimensional relief form.
• Experience different mark-making techniques through guided exercises and experimentation.
• From beginning to end – gain understanding in developing design concepts through to the carving process and finally, hand printing a series of linocuts.
•  Improved confidence of how to approach and develop relief printed (linocut) plates depicting natural objects and forms.

Level of course/workshop
Suitable for beginners to intermediate students, this workshop has a focus on technical linocut skills.

Materials: 
A materials list will be provided well before the start of the first class.

About the tutor
Dr Fenja T. Ringl is a Canberra-based printmaker with a passion for nature-influenced art that reflects Australia’s unique ecological and cultural environments.

With a professional background in archaeology, palaeo-ecology and science communication, Fenja draws inspiration from years of travelling and working across Australia’s diverse landscapes.

Fenja initially explored printmaking as a way of interpreting the natural world while on fieldwork years ago, and has since developed printmaking into a full-time occupation/obsession.

Image credits: Dr Fenja T. Ringl

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NatureArt Lab Awards

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