Ottawa Art Gallery - Summer Printmaking Workshop

OAG Summer Workshop

On Saturday, August 8, from 1 to 4 pm, the Ottawa Art Gallery offered a free workshop with Ottawa-based artist Anne Wanda Tessier to learn basic relief printing techniques.

Artist Anne Wanda Tessier (right) demonstrating inking
(My sister Kelly on the left)

Workshop Inspired by Mary E. Wrinch  (1877-1969)

This workshop was inspired by the exhibition: Female Self-Representation and the Public Trust: Mary E. Wrinch and the AGW Collection. I had written a blog post previously about my visit to the Mary E. Wrinch exhibit (click here)

In my earlier blogpost I quoted:

"In 1928, at the age of 51, Wrinch's style changed again. She began experimenting with linoleum block printing, interpreting the landscapes of her paintings into intricate prints that featured rich colours and strong outlines. She was also very interested in studying flowers and many of the prints feature flowers from her own garden." (Source: McNaught Gallery Newsletter June 2014)

Mary E. Wrinch, Morning Glories (1935),
colour linocut on paper, 41 x 32 cm.
Gift of The Gordon Conn – Mary E. Wrinch Trust, 1970. Art Gallery of Windsor

The Workshop

The registration had closed in early August as the workshop was full. It took place in the spacious courtroom inside the Arts court (2 Daly Av. Ottawa), All of the printmaking materials were provided.

Screen shot of our amazing instructor's Anne Wanda Tessier's FB page pictures.

Due to the short timeframe (3 hours) for the workshop, there was insufficient time to carve wood so workshop participants were given the choice of using either a pink Speedball Speedy-Carve™  ...

Speedball Speedy-Carve™

or a beige Speedball Speedy-Cut™ block. Linoleum was also available.

Speedball Speedy-Cut™

The Sunflower

My sister chose a beautiful sunflower to carve on to her block and accepted Anne's challenge to create a two colour print which required printing yellow first, then recarving her block and printing over the yellow in black. It turned out incredibly beautiful!

My sister putting her finishing touches on phase two of her sunflower print

Labrador Love

I chose to make a print of myself with my yellow labrador retriever Lexington ("Lexie"). I made a black and white print with the intention of making a heart stamp and printing it in red on Lexie's chest.

My Lexie print

The three OAG staff that were assisting in the workshop with Anne were wonderful and took hundreds of photos of everyone's prints. There were so many excellent prints produced.

I do hope that the OAG publishes the photos of the workshop and, when and if they do, I will add a link here.

It was great fun and my sister and I are so grateful to have had this opportunity to attend a workshop with such a talented artist and we highly recommend this workshop to anyone interested in exploring printmaking.