At the start of my time working for Manchester Metropolitan University, I was presented with the opportunity to lead a workshop for colleagues and staff as part of an internal wellbeing scheme, to boost morale during busier periods of the academic calendar and give staff time away from their screens and workload to do something fun. Initially I was a bit anxious to sign up to do so - not out of not wanting to, but because I was still a new starter (and still kind of am!) and didn’t want to seem like I was going out of my depth somehow - but this was obviously an irrational thought, and after some organisation by the wellbeing leads, I was given two slots for my ‘Press & Destress’ workshop, introducing colleagues to a technique that I learned a while back called ‘mimeoprinting’ to create their own prints and cards.
I do go into more depth on discovering this experiment in my mimeoprinting blog post, but in essence: I learned that I could use my thermal printer, originally used for tattoo stencils (just not often enough), with risograph master to create paper stencils of digital designs that could then be transferred onto materials with ink, very much like screenprinting. With risograph master being a form of thermoplastic paper, this means that the thermal printer can ‘burn’ a design into it to carve out just enough of the plastic to allow ink/paint to pass through when pressed onto the top layer.
Ahead of the session, I asked if anyone wanted custom designs that I could adapt into a suitable stencil, and provided an idea of the generic designs that would be available: patterns, flowers, a birthday cake, tigers, swirls, and my ‘thanks for all the fish’ card design. As much as I would have liked to go through the whole process start to finish in the workshop, I wasn’t sure how much I could fit into an hour whilst leaving enough time for people to actually make their prints, rather than just listening to artistic explanations of processes that they may not be interested in or understand. I wanted to make the workshop accessible for all, not just people with prior art experience, and so I decided to create all of the stencils beforehand to streamline the process, so that a brief show-and-tell of the actual printing method would be all that’s needed to get people starting on their own. This meant that whilst people were pressing the ink into their designs and getting their patterns and colour combinations perfected, I could passively explain what mimeoprinting is in the background for those that were more interested, and could produce more stencils according to what designs people wanted.
The workshop was super informal, which was better as it allowed everyone to chat and laugh and not be afraid to make a mistake or ask for help with things. I prefaced the session by saying that this process is entirely experimental - so at best, we all create some cool prints, and at worst, we all get a paid hour of chatting. No losses there!
Having only played around with mimeoprinting on my own, where I can take as long as I want to continue - usually drawn-out due to ADHD brain, regardless - I actually underestimated how quickly prints could be made once you got the hang of the method. Each person created three or four prints each, depending on how much time they wanted to spend on each design, whether they were painstakingly blocking off each leaf in a different colour or chaotically pressing the same stencil on one page multiple times to create layered designs. This actually gave me a great idea of timings for potential future workshops and how to structure them: 15 minutes per print, give or take, which included my explanation at the start and time in between to choose more stencils and mix more ink.
It was so interesting to see the colours people favoured and how they wanted to work them into their chosen designs, and it’s always lovely to hear about why people want to make or buy prints like this: a gift for parents, to brighten their bedroom walls, to bring a bit of vibrancy to an office desk. I don’t habitually psychoanalyse everyone who’s interested in my art (don’t worry!) - but you can tell a lot about a person by what they like and are passionate about, and who they express deep care and affection for in the form of creating or purchasing art for gifts that are so well-tailored to those they love - and it’s really rewarding to hear about these small yet meaningful gestures, whether it’s as an act of love for themselves or for others.
Mimeoprinting is such a playful, accessible way of printing more complex designs without the need for dedicated screenprinting tools, and I’m very grateful for the opportunity to share this with others, regardless of whether they’re super artsy or have never even picked up a pencil.
I’ve never really considered myself as a teacher, nor have I ever entertained the idea of hosting workshops - but I’m very glad I took the opportunity and trusted myself enough to ensure it ran smoothly and that everyone had fun. I think that part of the reason I felt more able to do this is because the process is purely experimental; the name was coined by one blog post and there are virtually no other resources that I could find online about it, save for those mentioned in my mimeoprinting piece, and how can you really mess up something that is designed to be playful?
It’s often said that ‘there are no mistakes in art’, which is a phrase that feels too simple a blanket statement to really cover all nuances of objectivity and visual design, so I won’t dissect it here - but a large part of my personal practice is based on individual experience and careful curation, so this method of printing where no two prints will ever be alike is something I am eager to weave into my other works.