DIY Greeting Cards: Screenprinting (February)

A handmade valentine is always a thrill to receive, regardless of how romantic one feels about the holiday. This Valentine’s Day, impress friends, family, and coworkers with a clever or charming hand-printed valentines featuring your own design.

Students will each bring a one-color design that they would like to transform into a stack of greeting cards. Designs can be a black and white drawing, text-based, a Photoshop or Illustrator file, or found imagery.

Students will learn how to make their image “print ready” and will expose their image onto a screen using photographic emulsion in our darkroom. Everyone will mix their own custom ink color, register their image onto cards, and then print, print, print! Our studio will provide 20 A6 Eco White fold over cards, but students can bring blank note cards if they prefer a different size or color. Students are encouraged to swap cards with their classmates to bring home a DIY variety pack of cards.

Screenprinting Refresher (February)

This refresher workshop is for students with previous screenprinting experience, but are feeling out-of-practice or fuzzy regarding the finer points of the process. Students should have already completed a one-day workshop or full class, although it need not have been at Spudnik. We also welcome printers that would like support working through a particularly complex project or reoccurring printing issue.

Spudnik Press staff will review an assortment of skills such as selecting the best mesh count, applying the perfect coat of photo emulsion, troubleshooting and diagnosing exposure and printing issues, ink mixing, registration, and screen reclamation. Equally as importantly, we will address how to consider these technical factors and limitations when designing a project for printing.

During the workshops, each student will expose a screen, and work with peers to print a two-color image designed to hone nuanced printing skills. Students are welcome to bring specific questions about their next project.

To help build printing confidence at Open Studio sessions, students are invited to return within the week (free of charge!) to put their freshly acquired knowledge to use. Through this workshop, students will not only brush up on old skills and become authorized to print at Spudnik, but are sure to walk away with new morsels of useful information regarding the art of screenprinting.

DIY Screenprinted Tea Towels (February)

This is a fun opportunity to make a snazzy set of tea towels featuring any image you choose! Bring your own design, hand lettering or illustration and we’ll provide the ink, screens, and tea towels. You’ll spend an afternoon learning the basics of screenprinting on fabric and leave with a set of four kitchen towels to gift or keep for yourself!

This hands-on workshop encourages each student to customize their project by choosing the size, placement, and color for their image. The best part of printmaking is making multiples, so each student gets five all natural tea towels to experiment with. We welcome brand new printmakers as well as those who have some experience and would like to learn to print on different materials.

Bold line drawings, silhouettes, geometric shapes, monograms or hand lettering all are great starting points for designs. Whether you are gifting this package to a culinary friend, family members or yourself, these handmade items will be sure to bring joy to their recipients!

Risography 101 (March)

The Risograph is an automated duplicator from Japan that efficiently produces offset-like prints in a variety of saturated colors. Though not originally intended for artistic application, the machine has recently gained traction (and notoriety) in small-press culture for its distinct footprint and efficiently as well as being rather finicky.

This workshop will walk students through the fundamentals of risograph printing for making books and fine art prints, and familiarize students with techniques to best reproduce their imagery. Students will become acquainted with the mechanics of the printer and learn basic maintenance, including how to change the master roll and a drum’s ink tube. Lastly, students will learn how to best design for the risograph, taking into consideration ink drying time, ink density, paper options, registration, and patience. Everyone will leave with a three-color collaborative print produced throughout the workshop.

While students gain authorization to continue making risograph prints at Spudnik Press Cooperative, attendees are encouraged to round out their riso know-how by taking a Risography 102 workshop and/or returning to use Open Studio shortly after taking the workshop.

Screenprinting on Textiles (March)

Knowing how to print on fabric opens up a slew of opportunities. Designing custom apparel, making gifts, stocking an Etsy store, making unique yardage for sewing projects, and manufacturing your own kickstarter rewards are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to potential fabric printing projects!

Screenprinting uses a stencil to transfer ink onto a flat surface. The process is approachable and fun to learn. Students will create prints from both hand drawn and digital images. Through weekly demonstrations, students will learn about ink mixing, color and pattern relationships, repeat patterns and printing with multiple colors. This class is well suited for first-time screenprinters as well as printers who have only printed on paper. Student will some experience will add to their repertoire a better understanding of how different fibers and weaves affect printing, and how screen coating, exposure and wash out, printing, and ink mixing is adapted with textile printing.

Graduates of Screenprinting on Textiles are encouraged to continue printing at Spudnik Press through our Open Studio or Keyholder Program.

Risography 102: Bring Your Own Files (March)

Risography 102 reinforces the skills introduced in Riso 101. Each student will bring their own project to set-up and print during the workshop.

Best practices for imposition or layout for zines and publications will be reviewed as well as tips for color separation and digital file set-up. Smart file set up is step #1 to ensure smooth and efficient printing!

Then, through creating a small run of prints during the workshop, students will get a refresher on how to make masters from digital files, how to troubleshoot paper jams and other typical print errors, and how to replenish ink and masters. Lastly, students will have the opportunity to use our guillotines to trim their prints.

This workshop is limited to just four students to ensure that everyone can print their own imagery and log time operating the machine independently. Students who take this workshop will be well suited to print and use guillotines unsupervised during Open Studio.

Students should come ready with a 2-3 color project–either a single-sided print to be completed in the workshop or a longer project to be finished during open studio. While PDF files are great, students are welcome to bring anything from text typed in Microsoft Word to photocopies.

Letterpress Pressure Prints

By combining stencils and low-relief collages with letterpress printing, artists can make textural images reminiscent of rubbings and collagraphs. Variation in the thickness of cut paper, string, plants, netting and other relatively two-dimensional items effect the amount of ink transferred by the cylinder of the press to the paper and leave a rich nuanced image on the page.

Students will work individually and collectively to create a variety of stencils, then experiment with the stencils, composition and the printing process to tell a story, create a mood, or build an illustration. Students will also be able to experiment with hand inking to create one-of-a-kind compositions. Throughout the workshop, students will create a series of up to 10 multi-layered monotypes as big as 19” x 25”!

For the technically inclined, the class will also address how to adjust cylinder packing and form height to achieve various printed results and to read and use a micrometer. Letterpress printers, both new and experienced, as well as artists and illustrators who like to work with monoprinting, stencils, or cut paper, will benefit from this class. Letterpress experience is helpful but not required.

T-shirts & Totebags Screenprinting Workshop (March)

Convert your own drawing or design to a collection of hand-printed wearable items in this energetic and informative one-day workshop. Printing an assortment of t-shirts or totebags is practical, fun and incredibly gratifying!

Students will bring to the workshops with a bold black and white drawing, a high-contrast photo, or a digital design. While .AI or .PSD files are great, we welcome students to bring anything from text typed in Microsoft Word to photocopies. After students refine the artwork (as needed) to be “print-ready”, student will use a pre-coated photographic screen and mix their own custom ink color. Everyone should bring five items of their choosing to print. As long as they are fabric and flat, we can help you print on it! Shirts, tote bags, tea towels, bandanas, and thrift store jean jackets will all work great. Leave with a sample for an Etsy store, a surprise gift for a friend, or an eco-friendly alternative to plastic bags!

For those who love this introduction to screenprinting, our 8-week Screenprinting Explorations class will round out your skills and allow you print independently through our  Open Studio program!

Screenprinting Explorations (March)

Most people are fans of screenprinting whether they know it or not. Screenprinting is an art form known for its bold graphics and versatility. A close cousin of stenciling, screenprinting is relatively easy to learn, yet has many facets to explore and master. Our eight-week class provides adequate time for new printers to complete a range of projects on paper and fabric, gradually increasing in complexity and nuance. With the ongoing support of a pro to help trouble-shoot along the way, students will be familiar with dark room exposure, mesh count, screen tension, ink consistency, and registration.

In addition to developing A+ printing skills, this class will help students develop their imagery, be it hand-drawn illustration or digital files, to successfully translate to print. By the end of the class, students will know their way around the print shop, and be well equipped to continue printing independently at Spudnik Press Cooperative.

Papermaking Basics (March)

This hands-on workshop introduces foundational papermaking skills like pulling, couching, pressing, and drying pulp to create rectangular sheet of cotton paper. Through making their own paper, students will also learn the basic history and science behind papermaking and the role of the beater, cellulose fiber, and hydrogen bonds. 

Papermaking at Spudnik Press is a low-tech non-toxic process that requires limited access to special facilities, and can be incorporated into home studios or classroom settings. In additional to fans of handmade paper, this workshop will benefit artists, printmakers, and art appreciators who want to better understand how paper is created.  

Each student will create about three unique sheet of cotton paper, embellished with pulp painting. This is a wet process, so dress down for this class. Paper will be ready to be picked up two days following the workshop.

Monotypes & Collographs (March)

Monotypes and collographs are two forms of printmaking that favor organic, gestural, textural, and ephemeral marks and imagery. They are also incredibly immediate, playful, and multi-faceted type of printmaking, and therefore well suited to first time printmakers and artists who typically work with paint, mixed media, and sculpture.

Monotypes usually begin from a sheet of plexiglass as the foundation. Through working additively and reductively with ink, crayons, water or solvents, and stencils, students can capture a huge range of aesthetics from subtle tonality to gritty textures to minimal formal forms. Collographs are similar but incorporate elements of relief by collaging things like fibers, sandpaper, and acrylic mediums directly to the plate. The plate is then inked similarly to either a relief or intaglio print.

If these options are not enough, Teaching Artist, Jessica Christy, will also introduce a method of incorporating photographic imagery using our darkroom to expose plates!

Throughout the class, students will develop new ways to build images while learning about the properties of ink, paper, pressure, and how they interact to create a broad range of aesthetic possibilities. Students will be able to make many prints to learn and test these processes before moving on to a project that combines various methods and showcases her or his own personal style or vision. Students will leave the class comfortable using our etching press and authorization to continue printing at Spudnik after the class.

Advanced Bookbinding: Artists’ Books (March)

This class is designed for people with beginning to intermediate bookbinding experience to delve into more advanced techniques and integrate content into their books, and to investigate “Artists’ Books” as an art form.

Projects and exercises will explore:

Approaches to marrying technique, material, and content.

Material exploration to expand artistic expression.

Various hand skills needed to strengthen book arts practices.

Looking to Johanna Drucker’s The Century of Artists’ Books, the class will reference historic and contemporary examples of work to investigate how our own creative practices can respond to books as containers for our artistic expression.

The class will begin with a focus on traditional codex forms such as decorative variations on stab bindings, complex sewing and folded structures including Secret Belgian and Blizzard bindings. The second half will integrate more sculptural forms, altered books, as well as several transfer techniques for adding content.

Bonus: Students will have the option to attend an additional session at the about” Joan Flash Artists Book Collection at SAIC!