Mokulito: Wood Lithography Weekend

Spend a hands-on weekend learning this innovative way of making prints with guest tutor Kathryn Desforges. Mokulito, is a hybrid form of printmaking which combines elements of lithography and woodcut, to create prints with a unique character, where the grain of the wood often becomes part of the finished print.

Mokulito takes the basic principles of lithography and applies them to a wood surface. This process suits those who have a more experimental approach to image-making - embracing and working with the natural properties of the wood where the grain will often show up in the background of prints, becoming stronger with each subsequent print.

You will be guided through this fascinating technique with a hands-on, experimental approach, and provided with examples, instruction and advice throughout. The aim of the course is to gain a good understanding of the process, to create a small run of prints from your own plywood blocks, and to give you the confidence to carry on using the technique in your own practice.

Kathryn Desforges learned stone lithography here at LPW back in 2013 when she was our Lithography Intern, and has been experimenting with alternative methods of lithography ever since. Recently she has been refining wood lithography and discovering new, more robust drawing materials to enable longer runs of prints.

Course structure

Day 1:
Morning
· Group introductions, housekeeping
· Explanation of technique with examples and Q and A
· Demonstration of preparing, drawing and printing a plywood block.
Afternoon
· Learners prepare and draw 2-3 plywood blocks, (one as a test block to print first), gum and leave overnight, ready for printing the next day

Day 2:
Morning
· Quick recap on day 1, Q and A
· Learners print their first test blocks.
Afternoon
· Learners print second blocks, experimenting with cutting back into the block, printing in colour if time allows, and trial different papers.
· End of day – clean up, Q and A, short crit. of work produced.

About the Tutor

Kathryn Desforges is a UK-based printmaker who creates process-driven, contemporary artworks which explore her preoccupation with ordinary, overlooked and in-between places.

Her work germinates from a fragmented collection of drawings, photographs, memories and lived experience, and evolves through printmaking processes such as etching, lithography and woodcut, which enable a unique visual language.

Material is important – carving, scratching and sanding back metal and wood reveals and covers up, helping to piece together fragments of ideas, distill and refine, and keep the physical act of making at the core of her practice. What results are re-imaginings – pieced together from snippets and fleeting glimpses of her everyday.

Recent work sees Kathryn exploring woodcut, using repetitive, meditative mark-making to reflect movement and fluidity, and exploring three-dimensional space – allowing the work to come off the wall and exploiting the natural movement of washi paper.

Kathryn’s work is held in public and private collections in the UK, including the Tate Library artist book collection. She trained at Kingston University, and has undertaken artist residencies at Intaglio Printmaker, UK, Mi-LAB, Japan, and a Post Graduate Lithography Fellowship at Leicester Print Workshop. Ever-hungry to learn and develop new print processes, her practice has developed through a symbiotic relationship with her career as a printmaking technician and tutor."