Posts Categorized: Multi-Week Class

March 25 | Intro to Letterpress Printing (6 Weeks)

Note: This 6-week class will be skipping April 8th and April 29th and will therefore conclude on May 13th.

This class is great for students looking for the basic principles of letterpress printing and those who want additional experience with Vandercook and Platen presses.

At the course of this 6-Week class, students will develop foundational skills by using a composing stick to hand set lines of types. From there, projects will introduce more technical considerations as well as creative approaches to printing. Students will learn to learn to lock-up type, set pressure, mix and modify ink and how to safely operate our machines. Using the different presses introduced to them, students will work on two projects, ranging from business cards, personalized stationery, broadside, or posters.

Additionally, students will acquire the technical skills to be authorized to print independently at Spudnik Press and the creative skills to produce inventive prints for years to come.

April 5 | Intaglio Explorations (8 Weeks)

Intaglio printmaking is a family of printing techniques developed (in part) by goldsmiths as a way to decorate armor, musical instruments and religious objects. These days, artists use a fine point needle to draw through a thin protective ground to expose copper. With the help of a chemical bath, marks and images are etched into the metal with a remarkable amount of detail.

Artists can also work more spontaneously by scratching gestures and images directly onto plates, transferring textures, or painting directly onto plates with resists and mordents. This highly versatile art form can produce a huge range of aesthetics.

Beginning with basic line etching, students will practice traditional plate making and printing. Through chine collé, aquatint, dry point, soft ground, and experimentation, students will add tonality, color, and varied marks to their images. No prior printing experience is needed, and students who do have intaglio experience can revisit the foundational skills with a more nuanced understanding of the process, and move on to independent projects.

Registration fee covers tuition and class materials, including consumable studio supplies. The basic tools (etching needle, scraper and burnisher) are available to use during class, but students may wish to acquire their own so that they can work outside of class.

April 11 | Intro to Screenprinting (4 Weeks)

Screenprinting is an art form known for its bold graphics and versatility. It is an approachable art form, yet has many facets to explore and master. This foundational screenprinting class introduces all the basic skills to get someone new to the process up and running, creating art on both paper and fabric. 

A selections of projects will offer students the opportunity to produce prints from drawings, digital designs, and found or photographic imagery. Students will become familiar with the full process from selecting the right screen for the job, to dark room exposure, to mixing inks, to printing, to reclaiming the screens. With support from an experienced printer, students will practice printing and (equally important) troubleshooting.

By the end of this class, students will know their way around the print shop and be authorized to continue printing independently at Spudnik Press  through our Open Studio program.