Get to Know Us
Wee Bothy Art is a mother-and-daughter printmaking team creating handmade prints and home furnishings inspired by Britain’s natural environment, with a particular focus on botanicals. Working with linocut and silk screen, they print onto paper, natural linen, and cotton to produce thoughtfully crafted pieces rooted in sustainability.
One half of the team, Eleanor, is a Scottish-born printmaker who studied Graphic Design at Glasgow School of Art before teaching art for over 30 years. She now works alongside her daughter Holly, an environmental science graduate whose passion for the environment strongly shapes the studio’s eco-conscious ethos. Together, they take pride in creating homeware using materials that are environmentally responsible, made to last, and guided by a slower, more considered approach to making.
Each design begins as an original drawing, which is transferred onto lino blocks or silk screens and printed by hand onto natural materials using eco-friendly dyes. Every printed piece is then carefully hand-finished to create a range of original prints and home furnishings, including napkins, table runners, cushions, tea towels, and lampshades.
Designed to replace disposable alternatives, their linen homewares are intended to be used, washed, and enjoyed for years to come. They soften beautifully with every wash while retaining their timeless character, making them suitable for both everyday living and special occasions.
This is our little cockapoo 'Whisky', he helps with quality control and takes his job very seriously!
Our Process
Screen Printing
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.
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, which allow it to be washed in the machine.
The designs are then hand-finished. This usually involves sewing them into napkins, table runners, cushions etc. Or framing and packaging our products.
Occasionally, we further free-motion embroider into our linen prints before framing them, adding an extra detail of unique craftsmanship
Lino Printing
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
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.
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.
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.