Y turned nine at the end of May, which we celebrated with a trip to Lego House and Lego Land in Billund, Denmark as it coincided with Y having a few days off from school. But it wasn’t the only Lego related fun we organised around her birthday party. Yesterday with 5 invited friends we visited Roy Scholten‘s workshop at the Hilversum graphics center, where the group tried their hand on Lego printing.

Using flat Lego pieces you create a design, and then ink them up and put them under a press. Next to the 6 kids we were 3 parents, and we all had a lot of fun. When it was time to stop and clean up (before heading home for a small mountain of pancakes for dinner) no one really wanted to quit. I was impressed with how this little group of 8-9yr olds worked with abstract forms, experimented with colors etc, and stayed focused the full time without needing much aid or prompting.

Roy Scholten providing instructions to the group.

Searching for Lego pieces for our designs

A few iterations I made.

I originally met Roy during the pandemic in a conversation about personal knowledge management, and appreciated his bird prints made using Lego. We since acquired a few. Our friend Peter also uses a letterpress, and after making introductions, to my delight came to visit from Canada with his partner L to work with Roy. Yesterday some of their production together still adorned the walls of Roy’s atelier.

Lining up several iterations of my ‘river’ print.

You can book his workshops (and by other members of their collective) for company / team outings, or for training, as well as birthday parties. E has done a training with Roy, and we also gave her mother a workshop with friends for her 80th earlier this year. See Grafisch Atelier Hilversum’s website.

The two prints I like best. At the top one I retro actively dubbed ‘soccer player heading a ball’, that reminds me of De Zaaier by Theo van Doesburg we recently saw in the Drachten DaDa museum. Below the ‘river’, where I flipped the paper 180 degrees before printing again. The result of a much lighter blue second river course reminds me of how old river meanders stay visible as oxbow lakes in the landscape when the river bed has moved on.