Workshop Make your own linocut patches

LEARN THE BASICS OF LINO CUTTING & PRINTING ON FABRIC!
Linocut printing is a relief printmaking technique where an image is carved into a sheet of linoleum, ink rolled over the raised surface, and the image is then pressed onto paper or fabric. This technique has a deep-rooted history with political activism and social justice movements.
✨ During the workshop you will learn how to:
- design your lino print
- use the tools properly
- print on fabric
- go home with self-made patches to pimp your clothes!
All tools will be provided as well as paint and fabric. However you are also very welcome to bring your own clothes/fabric to print on or to donate.
🙌 Ticket price includes:
- vegan lunch
- limitless tea
- all materials needed to carve and print
- personal attention & guidance thanks to small group size (max 8)
💰 Pricing
We want our events at Tellers' Playground to be accessible for all, so we work with tiered pricing. Please check in with yourself and select the fee you are able and willing to pay. € 28 covers the costs of materials, tea, and lunch. Any amount above that directly supports the facilitators who make this experience possible and helps keep this space open and accessible to all in the future.
🙋 Workshop facilitator
The workshop will be given by duizendpoot_arts, a tattoo and linocut print artist from Groningen, who prints both patches as well as their own line of linocut printed secondhand clothing.
💬 "Making patches sparked my love for art again and since then I have learned a lot about how versatile this medium can be. Patches are a very accessible way to start making lino cuts. With the added benefit that you can make all your clothes look cooler and swap patches with other linocut print aficionados!"
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A BRIEF HISTORY OF LINOCUT PRINTING
Making linocut prints is stepping into a long lineage of artists and activists. Linoleum (made from solidified linseed oil, cork dust, and tree resins) was invented in the 1860s as a cheap, durable industrial flooring material. Artists soon realised it was much easier to carve than wood and by the late 1800s linocut printing had became a popular art form. But because it was such cheap material and didn't require any expensive, heavy printing press, traditional male-dominated art academies looked down on it as a craft for children or hobbyists.
Its ease and affordability were exactly what made the medium so attractive to pioneering women in the 1920s and 30s. It gave them a way to create complex, multi-coloured artwork at their kitchen tables without needing anyone's permission or expensive equipment. Through the London's Grosvenor School Modernists (1920s–1930s), women pushed the technical boundaries of the medium so far that the art world could no longer ignore it. And it became a popular medium for artists like Pablo Picasso, M.C. Escher (before he moved on to woodcuts), Henri Matisse and Elizabeth Catlett.
Being so cheap, fast and visually catching, linocut prints soon became a high-impact way to bypass censorship and mass-produce iconic art for the streets. Making it one of the ultimate artistic weapons for grassroots resistance movements throughout the 20th century.
- The Mexican Graphic Revolution of 1930s used linocuts to fight fascism, support labor unions, and advocate for the rights of poor workers and peasants.
- The Anti-Apartheid Movement in South Africa used the medium to rapidly produce powerful visuals communicating ideas of liberation and democracy under heavily censored authoritarian regime.
- During the Black Power and Civil Rights Movements of the 1960s–70s) artists like Elizabeth Catlett used linoprints to visually represent Black dignity and civil rights, while artists within the Black Panther Party used bold graphics on posters and newspapers to spread community messages.
In the mid-to-late 20th Century, the development of specialised textile paints and fabric block-printing inks made linocut printing on clothing, home linens, and yardage a popular accessible craft. Under the counterculture movement of the 1960s and 70s, when Vietnam war protests and early environmental movements came together, activists began using second-hand clothes, military surplus gear and scraps of canvas and denim to print using fabric ink and the political linocut patch came into being.
Linocut printed patches exploded in popularity during the rise of the Punk Rock and Anarcho-Punk subcultures in the 1970s & 80s. Punks, who rejected corporate consumerism and mass-produced merchandise, used linocutting as the gold standard for making band merch and political statements. In the 1990s, the feminist Riot Grrrl movement adopted linocut printed patches to spread third-wave feminist ideas, zine culture, and reproductive rights messaging.
Linocut printing remains a staple of protest art today. Modern activist groups still hand-carve blocks to print patches and organise community workshops, like the one we are organising, to foster solidarity; keeping the raw, unpolished, and fiercely independent history of this medium alive.