“Her-Story” Wood Type Posters

INSTRUCTOR: Lorna Turner
Course Fee: $100
Class Length: 4 hrs

Elevate your voice like Aretha Franklin, Eleanor Roosevelt, & other powerful women! Learn to print a traditional broadside with a modern vibe using letterpress and rare wood type in this unique workshop to celebrate Women’s HERstory Month. Compose a phrase. Select your font. Apply your color of ink. IMPRESS YOUR POWERFUL MESSAGE ON PAPER. Beginners welcome as well as those more skilled. Bring a friend and celebrate together. This workshop is hands-on and very active. At the end of the class there will be a print exchange, in which you will take away a portfolio of prints made during the workshop.

Intro to Typesetting & Letterpress Printing

INSTRUCTORS: Janet Kupchick
Course Fee: $250
Class Length: 10 hrs (multi-day)

In this two-day workshop, students will learn the fundamentals of points, picas, type size, leading, and sorts—the essential elements for crafting a beautifully printed letterpress book. Students will spend about half the time setting their pages, and half the time printing what they've composed. At the end of the workshop, students will receive their own copy of the group's jointly-produced book, which will includes everyone's name and contribution. All skill levels welcome, and all materials are provided.

Letterpress Greeting Cards

INSTRUCTORS: Lorna Turner & Wendy Emery
Course Fee: $120
Class Length: 4 hrs

After a brief introduction to the history of letterpress printing and an overview of the workshop flow, you’ll learn how to compose wood or metal type on a galley using magnets, hand-ink your design, and print on a tabletop press. Create greeting cards for birthdays, graduations, anniversaries, and more. You will also learn how to score and fold your cards in this hands-on, fast-paced half-day workshop. You will make 25 greeting cards! All materials provided.

Platen Press Operation

INSTRUCTOR: Wendy Emery
Course Fee: $120
Class Length: 5 hrs

In this introductory workshop, participants will explore the possibilities of letterpress platen printing using both tabletop and floor model presses. There will be discussions about and demonstrations of oiling the press, locking a form into the chase, packing, setting guage pins, inking, feeding the press, and of course printing! All levels welcome for this educational and very hands-on workshop.

Pixel Hearts & LEGO Arts (Pairs)

INSTRUCTORS: Janet Kupchick
Course Fee: $180 (2 ppl)
Class Length: 4 hrs

Inspired by retro arcade legends like Space Invaders, Pac-Man, and Mario Bros, you and your partner, friend, teen, or child will turn tiny plastic tiles into your very own works of art! You’ll sketch your ideas on graph paper, build your design with LEGO tiles, ink up the press, and print your pixel masterpiece.

Your ticket is for two people, since this opportunity is expressly planned for double fun on the presses! By the end of the workshop, each creative pair will walk away with a collection of one-of-a-kind pixel art prints.

All skill levels welcome, and all materials are provided.
***Creative Pairs (All Adult–Youth or Friend Duos Welcome)

Pressure Printing

INSTRUCTOR: Janet Kupchick
Course Fee: $100
Class Length: 4 hrs

Let your inner child bloom as you explore the playful world of pressure printing and create floral-inspired artwork using cut paper and collage materials to form a custom backing sheet. When placed behind a blank sheet and run through an inked printing press, you’ll transfer subtle variations in texture, revealing a beautiful range of tones, patterns, and colorful impressions with each unique print. You will be working with a range of materials as you bring your unique vision to life. Get ready to feel inspired and engaged. Perfect for artists, educators, and anyone seeking a creative boost, this vibrant half-day workshop encourages participants to try something new at the Printing Museum! All experience levels welcome.

Type As Image

INSTRUCTORS: Janet Kupchick
Course Fee: $100
Class Length: 4 hrs

This is a fun workshop that celebrates the magic of printing! Using the familiar shapes of letterforms in a playful way to create designs, patterns and characters is the goal of this seasonally-inspired workshop, tho participants will also be encouraged to maintain focus on proper printing technique and principles of design (scale, repetition, white space, canvas area etc). Once our designs are set up, we’ll get busy printing the designs, creating a folio of posters to be exchanged at the end of class. All skill levels welcome, and all materials are provided.

Personalized Stationery

INSTRUCTORS: Erin Pieronek & Jenn Graves
Course Fee: $250
Class Length: 11 hrs (multi-day)

In this two-day adventure, participants will explore two art forms as they create their own unique set of personalized letterpress stationary. We'll start by experimenting with traditional Turkish marbling techniques to produce unique envelope liners. From there, participants will experience the joy of letterpress typesetting, learning to set metal type and then print on a Vandercook flatbed press. Throughout the weekend, you'll work side by side with artists and educators Jenn Graves and Erin Pieronek, who will share their expertise, inspire experimentation, and spark laughter. Saturday's workshop runs 10am to 4pm; Sunday's runs 10am to 3pm. No experience necessary. All materials provided to create your own set of 15 envelopes & notecards.

Photo Realistic Letterpress

INSTRUCTOR: Rebecca Chamlee
Course Fee: $425
Class Length: 18 hrs (multi-day)

Continuous-tone photographic images are characterized by gradual transitions between shades and colors and have frustrated letterpress printers for decades. The need for the traditional halftone screen often produces coarse prints, difficult registration and color issues. In this technical hybrid workshop, which includes both online and and in-person components, participants will explore the possibilities of letterpress printing as a means of producing successful four-color process images. Two live Zoom sessions include discussion and demonstrations on how to achieve successful results, choosing and editing original images, color manipulation in PhotoShop, soft proofing and preparing files for photopolymer plates. Students will order their own photo polymer plates for original four-color images. Two weeks later, with plates in hand, we will meet in person for hands-on printing, plus demonstrations of technique and discussions of strategies for letterpress printing of multiple plates in tight registration.

Skill level: Students should have letterpress experience. In addition, Adobe PhotoShop and Adobe InDesign must be available on the participant's computer, and they must have a basic knowledge of each.