Erin Hollingshead
Artist Bio
Erin Hollingshead is an interdisciplinary artist and educator living in K'jipuktuk (Halifax, Nova Scotia). For the past two years she has been working as a secondary level educator teaching Visual Arts to grades 7 through 12. Prior to that, she taught public painting classes from 2016 to 2022. Her work as an artist focuses on printmaking and painting. Hollingshead learned how to do relief printmaking (lino-cuts) in high school and then majored in printmaking at NSCAD University. She designs, carves, inks and presses all of her lino-cut blocks by hand. Hollingshead has been teaching lino-cut printmaking for the past few years through HRCE and Argyle Fine Art in Halifax.
Workshop Description
Lino-Cut Prints
The workshop would start with participants learning about the process of creating a lino-cut block. They would learn about the reductive process and how to use the carving tools. Participants would begin by carving a small piece of linoleum (1 x 1 inch) with a simple design to practice what they have just learned. Then participants would move into creating a design that they would like to carve on a larger piece of linoleum (4 x 6 inches), and once it has been drawn up, they would transfer it to their linoleum and carve it out. This can take up to two and a half hours. I encourage participants to go for something a bit more complex with their larger piece of linoleum. Half way through we take a break, and once participants return they learn about the printing process. I show them how to roll out ink using a brayer, and how to apply the ink to the carving they made. I show them a couple of methods of lining up their block with their paper and then show them how to print it by hand. I show participants how to use a wooden spoon and their hand to print their lino-cut onto paper. I encourage participants to get evenly printed prints, as well as experiment with different colours and layering.