Paper Block Printing - Holiday Cards

With Virginia Diaz

Please bring a simple, high-contrast 4" x 6" (or smaller) image to work from.

Create one-of-a-kind holiday cards that are 100% handmade by you! This special holiday workshop introduces the magic of reductive printmaking, a technique where you progressively carve a single linoleum block to create a two-color design. You’ll learn a new skill and leave with ten beautiful handmade cards! No drawing or printmaking experience required. Join this supportive beginner-friendly workshop, discover a new creative art, and connect with a community of fellow makers!

What You’ll Make & Take Home:

  • You'll create 10 custom, two-color holiday cards.

  • You'll also take home the materials to make more of your prints, including an instruction and materials sheet, 10 5x7" cards, 10 envelopes, one 4x6" block of linoleum, and ink

Skills & Concepts You’ll Learn:

  • Designing a holiday-themed image for the reductive process

  • Transferring your design onto a linoleum block

  • Safe and effective linocut carving techniques

  • Learning the reductive method: carving and printing in two stages

  • Properly inking the block and hand-printing onto cards

  • Aligning your paper for a clean, consistent edition of prints

Equipment & Tools You’ll Learn:

  • Linocut carving tools, linoleum blocks, block printing ink, brayers (ink rollers), and blank cards.

Class Outline:

  1. Design & Transfer: Introduction to reductive printmaking, adapting your holiday design, and transferring it to the block.

  2. First Layer: Carving the areas for your first color, mixing ink, and printing the first layer onto your cards.

  3. Second Layer: Further carving the same block for the second color, then printing over your first layer to complete the image.

  4. Wrap-Up: Review, tips for drying your cards, and Q&A about printing more at home.

Other Class Details:

  • Prerequisites: None. No Experience Required.

  • Class Capacity: 7 maximum, 3 minimum

  • Materials Provided?: Bring a 4 x 6" image of what you'd like to print.

  • Age Limit: 13+. Guardian required if under 18 (info)

  • Partner Ticket Available?: Yes

  • Clothing/Equipment Requirements?: Be prepared to get a little dirty.

About the Teacher

Virginia Diaz is a Peruvian interdisciplinary artist and trained printmaker based in Denver, where she has lived since 2005. She moved to the United States in the early 2000s to study Visual Arts, discovering printmaking during her undergraduate years. Through print, she continues to investigate the interplay between craft and expression, repetition and variation, cultivating an ongoing relationship with the discipline and its evolving forms. She is an experienced teacher of all printmaking techniques and loves spreading the ink.

What People Say about Virginia's Classes…

“It was very fun actually making the block prints, and Virginia was a great teacher—very clear and patient.”

“How amazing everyone’s designs turned out! The technique and direction were broken down so that even the most complete beginner could create something wonderful.”

“Friendly, patient, and very easy-to-understand instructor. A great go-at-your-own-pace environment!”