For years my studio has been a borrowed place. A table borrowed from the kitchen, a bed borrowed from a bedroom, a floor in the living room. I have never complained about working at home, on the contrary – you can always check what’s new in the fridge, and when working on less ambitious projects – do laundry, wash windows or even take a long bath in the middle of the day. The truth is that I work a lot and I don’t often take on obligations that are not attractive to me – so the windows were always kind of dirty. In addition, the studio is a workspace  – a place where it does not matter if you splash paint on the wall, where the floor should be in multicoloure, and the bathroom sink does not stay white for long. At the same time, I would like to point out that stains of paint on the floor do not mean dirt – I like to live and work in a clean and tidy environment.

After moving to Portugal, we’ve decided to build a studio separate from the house. These two buildings are only a few dozen meters away, so I could always pop into the house and clean these unfortunate windows …

So I have my own splashing area, built by a fantastic team from JULAR, a Portuguese family-owned company that deals with wooden constructions. The guys came over, took measurements and… it was ready. Bitch, I was gagged!

For the last three years, I’ve been starting my day here with coffee. I work from morning to evening, every now and then letting my eyes rest with the soothing views of the Alentejo hills stretching to the horizon. And when I feel a little hungry, I open the cupboard with a hidden supply of chocolate.

Here the brushes do not dry out and the easels are always ready. Here my dogs are taking afternoon naps, the gramophone plays music in the background and I play with colours. It rarely happens that I don’t visit my studio every day – maybe because I like my job. Even when I have guests, my hands itch to paint something.

Linocut was the first graphic technique I learned in college. It is also my favorite technique when it comes to printing. As a naturally impatient person, I noticed that the process of ‘digging’ in linoleum teaches me a lot of control and composure. Some people enjoy yoga or hugging birch trees under the full moon … I prefer meditation with a chisel in my hand.

After graduating from the Faculty of Graphics at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, I focused on painting, which was never my strongest point. However, paint and canvas were never enough for me and somewhere in the back of my head I felt that I wanted to return to graphics. Maybe out of fondness for my student years, maybe out of the need for a break from the easel, or maybe simply because it was fun and I like to have fun.

So I saved some money and bought a graphic press – a small one, one that would look good in the photos next to me and make me look taller than I really am: P Just to be clear – I have a bigger complex regarding my prominent nose than my height, but photos next to a printing press are more catchy then the ones next to door knobs!

And this is how my adventure with printing began again.

The entire atmosphere that accompanies the process of creating a linocut (from making the stencil, to the choice of paper and up to printing) is – as I mentioned at the beginning – a kind of meditation. For those of you who are not familiar with the technical aspects – a short explanation:

1. Create a sketch on the linoleum.
2. With a chisel, we dig out the linoleum that will not appear on the print – what we leave, all the protrusions will be our drawing. This process is rich in numerous cuts to your fingers (chisels should be very sharp), buckets of coffee (in my case black, no sugar) and a persistent neck pain.
3. After the matrix/stencil is prepared, we open the wine and rest for a few days, convinced of our talent.
4. Now it’s time to print! We put on some good music (bossanova or jazz will do), choose good, thick paper, soak it (I soak it in the shower basin ), dry it (slightly damp paper transfers printing ink better) and gently place it on the press, on top of our paint – covered matrix/stencil.
5. For the next few hours we painstakingly try to make a technically good print – usually after the first few attempts we manage to choose the right pressure of the press and the right amount of ink on the matrix. When we are satisfied with the quality of the print, we go with the flow and print the whole batch at once (if we have time and willingness).
6. Each print is then placed on a cork board and dried for at least 24 hours. Ta-dah 😛

There is a lot of charm in the graphic prints of the linocut technique. Relief printing (the oldest known printing technique, including linocut) leaves deep texture on the paper, visible grooves and chisel marks. It is a relatively simple process, but each use of the chisel is visible in the final print – I think that. is why this technique attracts me so much. The viewer sees the entire history of the artist’s work, every imperfection and every sharp edge of the line.

About WerkShoppe

A few years ago we realized there were so many artists out there doing amazing work but struggling to be seen. It made us wonder; what if we could bring these artists’ work to a larger audience, so they could continue to create? And how can we help people discover all this new art by making it really accessible?

So we decided to create WerkShoppe.

We see ourselves as an Art & Design community first. An online gathering place and ecommerce platform where artistic collaborations with emerging and established artists are turned into creative products.

We help people connect with art and with each other. We’re definitely picky about the art we love but we’re not snobby about where to find it.

Art brings us so much happiness and we want you to feel that way too.

Our first products are beautifully made puzzles designed to help you press pause, featuring really interesting artists. We love it, we love what we do, and we hope we can share that love with you.

Press Pause,

Ann – Marie & Wayne

It is so nice that with small communities everybody becomes a part of daily life. Projects like this one also give a chance to younger generations to participate and to express themselves. It was a pleasure to be working alongside them and even my limited knowledge of Portuguese language was not a problem (quite the opposite, they defo taught me few cool expressions and new swear words:P).

Working in the centre of Sao Luis.

It took us almost one month to finish. But it was an incredible experience. Every passer by would engage in conversation, I had older people telling me stories about the well and teaching me history of the town. But my favourite part of the day was when local restaurant owners would come over offering me coffee or little snacks (sometimes full lunches and yes, I do like my food).

I am very proud of the final result and I hope the new Old Well will become a part of Sao Luis for years to come.

None of it would be possible without Fernando and support from CIN, who kindly gave us their best paints.