Visual Narratives is a mixed media printmaking course with Sally Tyrie.

Lay the foundation for your creative process – your working environment, your areas of interest, and the visual subject that anchors your project.

• Identify the subjects, places, and ideas that genuinely excite you – this becomes the spine of your work

• Create a mood board that maps your visual direction, and begin gathering objects, imagery, and past work as raw material

• Plan a site visit and start building the sketchbook that tracks your entire journey

• Leave this module with a sketchbook, written notes, early inspiration and a clear direction to move in

Take your subject into the world – walk, observe, photograph, and draw in the places that matter to you.

• Gather visual imagery through active observation, photography and drawing on location

• Collect objects, textures, and fragments from your environment – rural, urban, or mixed

• Apply Sally's approach to finding imagery that is bold, enigmatic, or historically layered

• Build the raw visual library your whole mixed media printmaking course will draw from

Return to what you've gathered and begin making sense of it – editing, abstracting, and discovering the thread in your material.

• Print and arrange contact sheets to identify your strongest images and recurring themes

• Work at the bench – cut, layer, overpaint, collage, and juxtapose your gathered material

• Begin moving away from literal translation toward abstraction and personal interpretation

• Use digital editing and analogue techniques to uncover depth and connection in your imagery 

Respond intuitively to your gathered material – mark-making, gel printing, monoprinting, and discovering what emerges when you take risks.

• Explore gel plate printing, glass plate work, and monoprinting from your collected imagery

• Use mark-making tools, stencils, textiles and found materials to create layered surface texture

• Embrace accident and chance as a deliberate part of the process – not something to avoid

• Pin up your work, group it, and begin identifying which pieces are connecting

Combine photography and printmaking using photo lithography – Sally's signature technique for transforming images into layered, tactile prints.

• Master photo lithography using accessible home studio materials – no specialist equipment needed

• Create bold first transfers and delicate ghost prints directly from your own photographs

• Layer photography with oil-based inks, custom tones, and overprinting for depth and complexity

• Develop a new vocabulary for how your images move from screen to surface
  

Build collagraph plates from found materials and print them by hand – no press required.

• Construct collagraph plates using textured materials, card and surface buildup

• Print by hand using safe wash inks – overprinting onto gel prints and monoprints for layered results

• Explore how marks, shapes, and patterns from your research translate into a new printmaking form

• Begin thinking about how your prints can combine with collage and stitch in later modules 

Bring your prints, photographs, and drawings together – layering, assembling, and adding stitch to create cohesion across your work.

• Collage and assemble your imagery using Sally's layering and juxtaposition method

• Add stitch (machine or hand) as intentional line, colour, and texture, not decoration

• Work with found materials and mixed media to deepen meaning and surface quality

• Begin to see which pieces are connecting and where your body of work is heading

Step back, review the full arc of your work so far, and make considered decisions about direction and format.

• Review your complete body of work and identify what's connecting, and why

• Explore display and presentation options: grouping, assemblage, series format and book structure

• Create a simple hand-bound slit book from your contact sheets using stitch techniques

• Make deliberate decisions about which work to develop further and which to set aside

Move from experimentation to resolution – making deliberate decisions about format, scale, and presentation for your final pieces.

• Choose the format and surface for your resolved work: series, single piece, or an artist book

• Map your research and concepts to your chosen presentation format.

• Plan and execute your final pieces using Sally's decision-making framework

• Set a goal for your finished work – a personal deadline, a local exhibition, or simply a standard you're working toward

This bonus module guides you through the construction of a hand-bound artist book to present your mixed media printmaking work.

• Prepare and order your mixed media pages

• Create the cover and stitch the spine, to hold your body of work together

• Sally walks you through every step, with her own printed and stitched work as reference throughout

• Leave with a repeatable framework for every future project

Materials needed: found fabric or book cloth, mixed papers and artwork, greyboard, bookbinding glue, bone folder, cutting mat, scalpel and metal ruler.