Metal Typesetting

INSTRUCTOR: Lorna Turner & Janet Kupchick

Course Fee: $190

Class Length: Multi-day (10 hrs)

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. Time permitting, students can also compose and print a calling card or postcard on a platen press.

Students will spend about half of their 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.

Plants to Paper:
Paper Making with Natural Fibers

INSTRUCTOR: Judi Tentor

Course Fee: $135

Class Length: Multi-Day (8 hrs)

Explore the infinite possibilities of embedding, coloring, and lamination in this hands-on introduction to the basic techniques of western paper making! Students will engage in paper making practices as they learn how to form sheets with moulds and deckles, pulp painting/pouring, and embedding materials such as flower petals, leaves, and fibers.

Over the course of two days, students will work with various plant fibers suitable for paper making, including cotton, hemp, and abaca as well as recycled materials. The workshop will include discussion, instructor demonstrations, and in-class guided student work.

Photo Realistic Letterpress

INSTRUCTOR: Rebecca Chamlee

Course Fee: $400

Class Length: Multi-day (18 hrs)

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.

The Book Artist as Naturalist

INSTRUCTOR: Rebecca Chamlee

Course Fee: $275

Class Length: Multi-Day (13.5 hrs)

This multi-disciplinary workshop explores the botanical contact printing process (eco-printing) to create images on paper with fresh and pressed plant materials provided by the instructor and collected by students.

On the first day , students will learn botanical contact printing immersion techniques using dye baths on assorted paper and several nature printing techniques that don’t require a press. On the second day, the results will be used to create four books –- two non-adhesive no-sew structures, a multiple signature pamphlet, and a hybrid structure based on the accordion with pockets and sewn in signatures – all filled with rich visual content. Students will receive comprehensive handouts for all the book structures and nature printing techniques.

This workshop is perfect for artists, designers, painters, printmakers, book artists and non-artists with interest making books and in the natural world. Knowledge of basic book binding is helpful, but not mandatory.