Top 20 'Kitchen-Table-Printmaking' Wall Art Designs to create for beginners this weekend - Goh Ling Yong
Ever feel that itch to create? That desire to hang something on your walls that’s truly yours? You don’t need a sprawling studio or a hefty budget to make stunning art. In fact, some of the most beautiful and personal pieces can be born right on your kitchen table, with simple tools and a bit of ink. This is the magic of kitchen-table printmaking—an accessible, deeply satisfying craft that transforms everyday materials into one-of-a-kind wall art.
Printmaking might sound intimidating, conjuring images of giant, complex presses. But at its core, it’s simply the art of transferring an image from one surface to another. Whether you’re using a potato, a recycled foam tray, or a small block of linoleum, the process is the same: you create a design, apply ink, and press it onto paper. The result is a beautifully textured, slightly imperfect piece that hums with handmade charm. It’s a way to slow down, connect with your creativity, and fill your home with stories.
So, clear a space on your table, grab a cup of tea, and get ready to be inspired. We’ve compiled 20 fantastic wall art designs perfect for printmaking beginners. Each idea uses simple techniques and materials, ensuring you can go from concept to finished art in a single weekend. Let’s dive in and make some magic.
1. The Classic Polka Dot Pattern
There's a reason polka dots are a timeless classic. They are cheerful, versatile, and incredibly easy to create with printmaking. This design is the perfect entry point because it requires no carving skills whatsoever. You can use the end of a wine cork, a pencil eraser, or a round sponge to create your "stamp."
The beauty of this project lies in its customizability. You can create a perfectly aligned grid for a clean, modern look, or a scattered, random pattern for a more playful, whimsical feel. Experiment with different colors—a single bold color like navy or mustard on white paper looks chic, while a multi-colored approach creates a vibrant, confetti-like effect.
Pro-Tip: For a more organic look, try using a potato cut in half. The slightly irregular shape of the potato will give your dots a wonderfully rustic, handmade quality that you can't get from a perfectly machined stamp.
2. Simple Geometric Shapes
Triangles, squares, and half-circles are the building blocks of countless modern art pieces. By carving these simple shapes into a potato or a piece of soft-cut linoleum, you can create a minimalist masterpiece. The key here is repetition and arrangement.
Think about creating a larger design from these smaller elements. You could print a row of triangles to suggest a mountain range, or arrange squares in a checkerboard pattern. A popular design involves printing overlapping half-circles in different colors to create a scalloped, Art Deco-inspired look. This project teaches you the fundamentals of spacing and composition without requiring complex carving skills.
Pro-Tip: Use painter's tape to mask off sections of your paper and create a clean border. Printing your geometric pattern within this defined space will give your final piece a professional, gallery-ready finish.
3. The Iconic Monstera Leaf
The Monstera Deliciosa is the undisputed star of the houseplant world, and its iconic, fenestrated leaf makes for a stunning print. This design is a great next step after mastering simple shapes because it introduces gentle curves and negative space.
The easiest way to tackle this is with styrofoam printing. Grab a clean styrofoam tray (from produce or takeout), and sketch your leaf design onto it with a pencil. Press firmly to create indented lines. When you roll ink over the surface, it won't settle in the grooves, leaving your beautiful leaf outline to be printed on paper.
Pro-Tip: Don't aim for a perfect, symmetrical leaf. The natural beauty of a monstera is in its imperfections. A slightly wonky leaf or an irregularly placed split will add character and authenticity to your art. Print with a deep forest green ink for a classic look.
4. Botanical Silhouettes with Real Leaves
Why carve a leaf when you can use the real thing? This is perhaps the most direct and beautiful form of kitchen-table printmaking. It's a fantastic way to connect with nature and capture the delicate details of the world around you.
Gather a few interesting leaves from your garden or a local park—ferns, maple leaves, and eucalyptus all work wonderfully. Gently brush a thin layer of block printing ink or even acrylic paint onto the veiny side of the leaf. Carefully place it ink-side-down on your paper and use a clean roller (or the back of a spoon) to press firmly and evenly. When you peel the leaf away, you'll be left with a breathtakingly detailed impression.
Pro-Tip: Create a composition by arranging several different types of leaves on one large sheet of paper. Using a single color, like black or a deep indigo, will create a sophisticated and cohesive botanical study.
5. Minimalist Mountain Range
Capture the majesty of the mountains with just a few simple lines. This design is perfect for soft-cut linoleum or a larger styrofoam block. The goal isn't realism, but to evoke a feeling of grandeur and tranquility.
Simply carve a series of jagged, overlapping peaks. You can make them sharp and dramatic or soft and rolling. The power of this design comes from its simplicity. A single print in black ink on stark white paper can be incredibly impactful. You could also experiment with a "split fountain" technique, where you apply two colors of ink (like blue and grey) to your roller at the same time to create a beautiful gradient effect across your mountain range.
Pro-Tip: After printing your mountains, consider adding a small, simple sun or moon. Carve a tiny circle or crescent on a separate, small block (an eraser end works perfectly) and print it in a contrasting color like gold or yellow above your peaks.
6. Layered Color Blocks
This design introduces a fundamental concept in printmaking: registration, or the art of lining up multiple prints. It sounds technical, but with simple shapes, it’s very beginner-friendly. The idea is to create a composition using two or three overlapping blocks of color.
Carve two simple shapes—a square and a circle, for example—on separate small blocks. Print the first shape in a light color, like pale pink, and let it dry completely. Then, carefully align your second block so it slightly overlaps the first print, and print it in a bolder color, like a deep red. The area where the colors overlap will create a third, darker shade, adding depth and interest to your piece.
Pro-Tip: For easy alignment, place your paper in the corner of a "jig" made from two pieces of cardboard taped to your work surface. This ensures your paper is in the exact same spot for each layer of printing.
7. Repeating Fruit Pattern
Add a splash of color and fun to your walls with a repeating fruit pattern. A wedge of lemon, a simple strawberry, or a stylized bunch of cherries are all fantastic subjects that are easy to carve and instantly recognizable.
Potato printing is perfect for this. Cut a potato in half and carve your simple fruit shape into the flesh. This is a classic for a reason—it’s quick, fun, and the starchy surface of the potato holds ink surprisingly well. Print your chosen fruit in a repeating pattern to create a piece that feels like custom-designed wallpaper.
Pro-Tip: Think beyond the fruit itself. For a lemon print, carve a separate small block for the leaves. Print your yellow lemons first, let them dry, and then add little green leaves to each one. This small detail elevates the entire piece.
8. Whimsical Constellations
Bring the night sky indoors with a delicate constellation print. This project is less about carving one large block and more about creating a series of small stamps to build a celestial scene.
Use small erasers or a "Speedy-Carve" block to create stamps for different star shapes—simple dots, four-pointed stars, and brighter, multi-pointed stars. Plan out your favorite constellation (Orion is a great one to start with) on a piece of dark paper, like navy or black. Print your stars using white or metallic silver ink, then use a white gel pen to draw the faint lines connecting them.
Pro-Tip: Don't just stick to the main stars of the constellation. Add a random scattering of smaller, fainter "star" dots around the main pattern to create a sense of a vast, star-filled galaxy.
9. Hand-Drawn Florals
You don't need to be a master illustrator to create a beautiful floral print. The charm of this design comes from its simple, doodle-like quality. Styrofoam printing is the ideal medium for this, as the act of drawing with a pencil directly translates into your final print.
On a styrofoam sheet, lightly sketch a few simple flowers—think daisies, tulips, or poppies—with long stems and a few leaves. Go over your lines, pressing firmly to create deep grooves. The final print will have the loose, free-flowing feel of a pen-and-ink drawing.
Pro-Tip: Instead of a traditional bouquet, try an all-over "meadow" pattern. Fill your entire paper with flowers of different heights and sizes for a wonderfully immersive and joyful piece of art.
10. Textured Circles with Found Objects
This project is all about exploring texture. Forget carving altogether and look around your home for interesting circular objects. The top of a jar, a roll of tape, bubble wrap, or the end of a cardboard tube can all become printmaking tools.
Dip your found object in ink and press it onto the paper. The goal is to create a composition of overlapping circles, each with its own unique texture. Bubble wrap will create a dotted pattern, while corrugated cardboard will produce fine lines. This is a playful, experimental process that yields surprisingly sophisticated results. As we often explore on the Goh Ling Yong blog, using everyday items in your art practice can unlock a whole new level of creativity.
Pro-Tip: Stick to a monochromatic color scheme (different shades of one color, like blue) to unify the various textures and create a cohesive, modern art piece.
11. Minimalist Line Art Face
Inspired by the continuous line drawings of Picasso and Matisse, this design is chic, modern, and deceptively simple. The key is to create a single, flowing line that suggests the features of a face in profile or head-on.
This is another great project for styrofoam printing. Draw your design with a ballpoint pen, pressing hard to create a continuous groove. Don't lift the pen as you draw the eye, nose, and mouth to get that classic, abstract feel. When you ink the plate, your elegant line drawing will emerge in negative space.
Pro-Tip: Print your design off-center on the paper. This asymmetrical composition is more dynamic and visually interesting than a perfectly centered image.
12. Cityscape Silhouette with Cardboard
Build your own skyline using nothing but recycled cardboard. This is a fantastic project for using up old shipping boxes and creating a bold, graphic piece of art.
Cut strips of cardboard into various rectangular shapes to represent buildings of different heights and widths. Arrange them on a piece of backing paper to create your cityscape. Then, roll ink over your cardboard "block" and print. The texture of the cardboard will add an interesting, gritty quality to your print, perfect for an urban scene.
Pro-Tip: For added detail, use corrugated cardboard for some buildings and flat cereal box cardboard for others. You can also peel away the top layer of corrugated cardboard to reveal the wavy inner structure for even more texture.
13. Single Word Art
Sometimes, a single word is all you need to make a statement. Choose a word that resonates with you—"HOME," "BREATHE," "LOVE," "CREATE"—and turn it into a powerful piece of typographic art.
This requires a bit of carving, so soft-cut linoleum or a larger rubber block is ideal. Remember that you need to carve your letters backward (a mirror image) for them to print correctly. It's easiest to write your word on tracing paper, flip it over onto the block, and rub the back to transfer the reversed image before you start carving.
Pro-Tip: Choose a simple, bold, sans-serif font. These are much easier to carve than delicate, curly script fonts. Print your word in a classic black or a single, impactful color.
14. Abstract Ocean Waves
Capture the rhythmic energy of the sea with a series of simple, repeating curves. This design is less about a realistic depiction of the ocean and more about conveying its movement and mood.
On a linoleum or styrofoam block, carve a series of parallel, wavy lines. You can make them gentle and rolling or sharp and choppy. When you print this pattern repeatedly, it creates a mesmerizing effect. Try printing in various shades of blue and green, or even a dramatic black and white.
Pro--Tip: Create two separate blocks of wave patterns. Print the first block, let it dry, and then print the second block over it in a slightly different color and orientation. This layering will create a wonderful sense of depth and movement.
15. The Ginkgo Leaf Trio
The fan-shaped ginkgo leaf is a symbol of longevity and endurance, and its elegant form makes for a beautiful print. Unlike the complex monstera, the ginkgo is a relatively simple shape to carve.
The most effective composition is often a trio of leaves. Carve one single ginkgo leaf on a small block. Then, plan your print by stamping it three times on your paper, changing the angle and orientation of the leaf each time. This creates a sense of graceful movement, as if the leaves are tumbling through the air.
Pro-Tip: Ginkgo leaves are famous for their brilliant yellow fall color. While printing in green or black is lovely, try printing your trio in a vibrant, golden-yellow ink on a soft grey or cream paper for a stunning effect.
16. Tessellating Tiles
A tessellation is a pattern of shapes that fit together perfectly without any gaps. Creating a print with this concept results in a dynamic, mesmerizing design that draws the eye in.
Start with a simple shape that can tessellate, like a square, hexagon, or a stylized fish or bird shape. Carve your stamp carefully. The magic happens during printing. You need to meticulously line up each impression next to the previous one, rotating the stamp as needed to make the pattern interlock perfectly. This requires patience but the result is incredibly rewarding.
Pro-Tip: Start your pattern in the center of the paper and work your way outwards. It's much easier to keep the pattern straight and aligned this way. Using a pencil and a ruler to draw light grid lines on your paper can also be a huge help.
17. Abstract Textures with a Gelli Plate
While not a traditional carving method, Gelli plate monoprinting is a cornerstone of kitchen-table art and perfect for beginners. A Gelli plate is a soft, gelatin-like slab that you roll ink onto. You can then press objects into the ink to create texture, or draw into it before laying your paper on top to pull a single, unique print (a "monoprint").
For an abstract texture piece, roll out a layer of ink on your Gelli plate. Then, press things like bubble wrap, string, stencils, or leaves into the ink. Remove them, and then pull your print. The plate will have captured the negative space and texture of your objects, creating a complex and layered piece of art in minutes.
Pro-Tip: Don't clean your plate perfectly between prints. Allowing small remnants of previous colors to remain on the plate can lead to "ghost prints" and happy accidents that add incredible depth and history to your work.
18. A Flock of Birds
Capture the freedom of a flock of birds in flight with a simple, repeated stamp. The shape itself is very easy—think of the classic "M" shape that you drew as a child. This simple V- or M-shaped bird is all you need.
Carve one small bird stamp from an eraser or a small piece of lino. The art is in the printing. Stamp your bird repeatedly across the page, varying the angle and spacing to create the illusion of a flock moving together. This repetition transforms a very simple mark into a dynamic and evocative scene.
Pro-Tip: Create a sense of distance by using less pressure on some of the stamps. The fainter, less-defined birds will appear to be further away, adding perspective and depth to your 2D print.
19. Architectural Arches
The simple, elegant shape of an arch has been a staple of art and architecture for centuries. It's a wonderfully calming and balanced form that makes for a sophisticated print.
You can carve a single arch shape from a potato or a lino block. The interest comes from how you arrange it. You could print a single, bold arch in the center of your page for a minimalist statement. Or, you could repeat the arch in a row to create the feeling of a Roman aqueduct or a cloistered walkway. Playing with overlapping arches in different colors can also produce beautiful, abstract results.
Pro-Tip: Try a "reduction print" on a small scale. Print your first arch in a light color (e.g., beige). Then, carve away a bit more of the block to create a smaller, inner arch. Print this new shape directly on top of your first print in a darker color (e.g., terracotta). This is a simple introduction to a more advanced printmaking technique.
20. Sunburst/Starburst Lines
End your weekend of creating with a burst of energy! This design is all about radiating lines and is incredibly simple to execute. It's a fantastic way to practice your carving skills by focusing on straight lines.
On a square or circular block, carve a series of lines that radiate out from the center, like the rays of the sun or a starburst. You don't need to be perfectly precise; in fact, slight variations in the thickness and spacing of the lines will add character. This design looks amazing printed in a bold, warm color like orange or gold, or as a crisp black-on-white graphic.
Pro-Tip: This block is incredibly versatile. Print it once for a singular sunburst. Or, repeat the print in a grid pattern to create a larger, more complex design that has a mid-century modern feel. It’s a design element you'll come back to again and again.
Creating art for your own home is one of the most rewarding things you can do. It infuses your space with personality and serves as a proud reminder of your own creativity. As you've seen, you don't need expensive equipment or years of training—just a few simple materials, a bit of time, and the willingness to play.
So, pick a design that speaks to you, gather your supplies, and make this the weekend you become a printmaker. Don't worry about perfection; embrace the unique textures, the slight misalignments, and the happy accidents. That's where the real beauty of handmade art lies.
Which design are you most excited to try? Let us know in the comments below! And when you’ve created your masterpiece, be sure to share it on Instagram. Tag us and use the hashtag #KitchenTablePrintmaking so we can celebrate your amazing work. Happy printing
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
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