Course overview
Miroco Machiko is a Japanese artist celebrated for her bold, vibrant and colourful paintings of animals and fauna. She aims to capture the essence of her subjects through her playful application of exaggerated scale, expressive mark-making and unusual perspectives.

In this four-week printmaking course, children will explore a range of drawing and printmaking techniques inspired by the joyful world of Miroco Machiko. They will focus on creating expressive images of beasts and tropical fauna using bold collage, mono-printing, watercolour, and chine-collé. Through playful exercises and intuitive mark-making, children will be encouraged to experiment with scale, unconventional viewpoints, and texture — developing their confidence in visual storytelling while creating imaginative, layered artworks.

Week one — Fashioning our Beasts

• Technique: Children create imaginative animal forms by arranging pre-cut shapes inside viewfinders, using reference images of Miroco Machiko’s bold and expressive compositions.

• Activity: Students explore Machiko’s work through books and prints, then build their own fantastical beasts using cut-out shapes, loosely fixed with blue tack for flexibility.

• Focus: Encourages playful exploration of composition, colour and scale while developing an eye for visual storytelling and expressive character design.

• Outcome: Each child produces a fully composed animal collage, photographed for reference and used as the foundation for their mono print.

Week two — Expressive mark-making through Mono-printing

Technique: Focusing on the details found on their collaged animals and fauna, children draw onto newsprint laid over inked aluminium plates, transferring rich expressive marks and spontaneous line work to create mono-printed layers in various colours.

• Activity: Students divide their collaged creatures into colour groups, then re-create each section using a different coloured inked plate, rebuilding their creatures and fauna through mono-print piece by piece.

• Focus: Introduces multi-step printmaking processes and expressive mark-making, while encouraging attention to texture and thoughtful colour separation.

• Outcome: Each child will create a set of beautifully layered mono-printed animal parts, filled with energy and personality, ready for assembly.

Week three — Chine-collé Prep & Drawing from (wild) Life

Technique: Using wheat paste, children prepare mono-printed animals and fauna for chine-collé and draw with water colour pencils directly onto aluminium plates to capture their impressions of the natural environment.

• Activity: Children cut and glue their mono-printed pieces and then head into the meadow to observe and sketch flora directly onto their aluminium plates.

• Focus: Develops fine motor skills, care in handling materials, and sensitivity to natural detail through direct observation and soft drawing media.

• Outcome: Each child will have a completed creature ready for final printing, and a botanical background plate rich with colour and texture.

Week four — Final Chine-collé Prints & Sharing

Technique: Children layer their glued mono-printed components onto aluminium plates and run them through the press with damp cotton paper to create a final chine-collé print.

• Activity: Students pull their final layered print and participate in a celebratory show-and-tell, discussing their process and sharing their creations with the group.

• Focus: Brings together all skills developed over the course—composition, colour planning, mark-making, and observation—in a single final piece.

• Outcome: Each child leaves with a finished chine-collé artwork inspired by Miroco Machiko, and a deeper understanding of printmaking as a joyful, multi-step creative process.

Details

Duration: 4 sessions

Age group: Seven and over

Wednesday’s, 5pm—6.30pm

June 11th

June 25th

July 2nd

July 9th

All necessary materials provided

Fees

€70

For parents/guardians on no or low incomes we offer two places at zero cost. Please email us directly should you wish to apply. No questions asked.