Duration: 5 hours

Create your Letterpress Art or postcards

Create your own letterpress postcards or greeting cards at this fun, hands-on letterpress workshop where you can try your hand at cardmaking or crafting your own mini-prints! Writing postcards is a time-honoured tradition, but making your own adds to the fun for the sender and makes a postcard a treasured keepsake for the receiver too. If the pandemic taught us anything, it was the value of staying connected with good friends and family. In this workshop, we will make cards or mini-prints to send to family or friends to let them know we’re thinking about them. In a friendly and supportive setting, you’ll create limited edition postcards that feature your favourite poems or meaningful words using vintage type on a mobile letterpress.

If you have any drawings, prints you would like to recycle & overprint feel free to bring along.

Highlights

• Learn the art of letterpress printing. Compose metal type upside down and backwards to make your own narrative.
• Explore your own creativity and experiment with design.
• Create special mementos to send to loved ones here in Ireland or abroad.
• Take home your own beautiful cards or mini-prints to keep or pop in the post.
• Suitable for adults, seniors, teenagers, Halloween, Christmas, engagement, birthdays & anniversaries, hen dos.

Includes

Spaces on our workshops are limited so that our makers can offer you the hands-on help and support you need to make the most of your time with us. Just bring yourself! All materials are included within reason: 2 sheets of large Japanese Bamboo Paper cut to whatever you wish to print, use of Adana letterpress, use of variety of type, rubber-based inks. Tea and coffee are also included.

This workshop is also available to book for private group get-togethers; themed celebrations; for corporate team building and well-being purposes; and can be combined with other processes such as bookbinding, etching or screenprinting and can be brought to a location of your choice.

You may either bring your own lunch or opt for the local community café – known as the Old Hardware. It’s a great place to find hand-made scones or cakes, and Mel’s Gastro Pub across the road from the Blueway Art Studio, serves food from 2pm at the weekends and from 5pm during the week. There are lots of options for things to do, places to stay, eat and drink in nearby Athy too.

What should I wear?

It’s a good idea to wear comfortable clothes and shoes that you won’t mind getting marked.

How accessible is the workshop?

Blueway Art Studio is on the ground floor so there are no stairs to climb. However, it’s an old building with a smaller than usual door so not all wheelchairs fit through.

You might not believe it, but everyone is creative! Some of the people who join us at the workshops may be practising creatives and others will be absolute beginners. All are welcome! You just need to bring an open mind and you will create something you will cherish.