Get to Know Us
Wee Bothy Art is a mother and daughter team of professional printmakers. Creating unique, handmade linocut prints and home furnishings inspired by nature.
Hi! I am Eleanor, co-owner of Wee Bothy Art, which I run with my daughter Holly. I am a born and bred Scot, growing up in Glasgow. I am an Honours Graduate from Glasgow School of Art, where I studied Graphic Design. I have a PGCE and have taught Art and Design in secondary schools for nearly 30 years. My passion has always been in printmaking and I am now so pleased to be working with my daughter and very excited for what lies ahead.
Hi, I'm Holly! Unlike my mum I have grown up here in Essex. Mum introduced me to linocut during my A-levels and I have never looked back, I love how theraputic the carving can be, and once it's finished, the possibilities of what you can do with that block are endless! I always struggled to choose between my passion for the environment and art and chose to study environmental science at the University of East Anglia, where I graduated from in 2022. The knowledge I gained has helped us become an eco-friendly business. I hope to continue to use this knowledge to spread awareness for environmental issues through our art.
This is our little cockapoo 'Whisky', he helps with quality control and takes his job very seriously!
Our Process
We start all of our design processes with a drawing in fine line pen. We are influenced by the beauty of the natural environment and prefer to draw from life or photographs we have taken.
Once we have our drawings we transfer them onto our lino blocks using graphite pencils. Once on the block this is when we make our finishing touches to the design.
The carving is our favourite part, time flies by! Bigger prints can take multiple days, smaller ones can be just a few hours
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We use a natural lino made from linseed oil and Pfeil carving tools that require us to stop every 20-30 minutes and re-sharpen the tool we are using.
Once carved we will do a test print to highlight any areas that might need more work. We are then ready to print!
We use Caligo safe wash inks to print onto paper and fabric. Once we have mixed our colour we ink up the block using a brayer (roller) and can either use our printing press or another roller or a Japanese barren to transfer the print over. We tend to use the press for the larger prints and print smaller prints and fabric by hand.
Once dry, our fabrics have to be heat pressed to set the print and be safe to wash.
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We also make reduction prints which have a more individual process. You can find out how we can make these on our blogs where we go into more detail.
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If you want to learn how to do this yourself we run workshops for people of all levels of experience, head to our workshops section of the website to find out more.
Screen Printing
Although you can lino print onto fabric, most of our work is screen printed. Screen printing gives a cleaner print when using fabric.
Our process starts the same, with our drawings. These are transferred onto acetate using black pen. The acetate is placed onto a screen which has been coated in a light-sensitive emulsion. The screen is then exposed to light in a dark room and the emulsion hardens wherever the design doesn't block. The screen is washed to remove the unhardened emulsion and the design is ready to be printed. ​​
To print, we drag eco-friendly dyes across the screen using a squeegee, onto natural linen and cotton. These are then heat pressed to set the print and allow it to be washed in the machine.
