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Letterpress Monitored Open Studio is for participants who want to practice what they learned in Letterpress introductory classes. Participants will work toward satisfying the qualifications needed for fob access to the studio to use the letterpress equipment and resources during Open Studios. A monitor will be present to assist you.
Please bring the Letterpress Instructional Packet you received as a handout from one of the introductory classes listed in the prerequisites below to guide your work.
Details:
If you have any questions, please contact Peggy Graving (peg10173@gmail.com).
This class has a prerequisite. Please see description below. In this hands on workshop we, will further explore classical marbling patterns derived from Middle Eastern and European marbling of the past four centuries including: Moire from Spain; Italian Shell from Italy; and Non-pareil from France. In addition to these standard patterns, you will be encouraged to make your own successful experiments. It is essential, nonetheless, that you understand the basic technique, which throughout all its historical variations has remained the same: paints are made to float on the surface of water, manipulated into designs and then transferred to a sheet of paper.
Three other techniques will be introduced and then practiced: stenciling and masking; making Tiger's eyes with phosphorous; and antique color mixing.
There will be a demo by the instructor and then you will get to practice:
Instructor bio:
Len Eisenhood is an educator and artist and is currently showing his marbled papers and collaged paintings at The Island Gallery.
Wondering what Letterpress is? Whether you are a beginner or an experienced letterpress printer, drop in any time between 4:00 PM and 6:30 PM during this monitored studio session to become acquainted with BARN’s Letterpress Studio — its equipment, tools and resources. Join us for one or more sessions to get your questions answered and talk letterpress. Please see our calendar for other dates and times.
Details: Free event - all levels of learners are welcome No prerequisites required Please register so we know how many to expect
Letterpress Monitor Bio's:
Hidde Van Duym is a Founding Member of BARN and is a member of the Book-Arts/Letterpress Steering Committee. He is a book-arts artist whose work has been shown at Bainbridge Arts & Crafts, Roby King Gallery, Craft in America, and the Artist's Books Collection at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art. He regards the letterpress as an opportunity to expand his book-arts horizons.
Peggy Graving is a member of the steering committees at the BARN for the Book Arts/Letterpress Studio and the Printmaking Studio. Her letterpress knowledge and skills have been developed in multiple BARN courses taught by Ellie Mathews and Carl Youngmann of The North Press in Port Townsend.
Go wild making your own gift-wrapping for any occasion; make snazzy dust-jackets or (note)book covers; even “make” scraps for cards and/or bookmarks. We’ll use a variety of large-size papers and different techniques such as Suminagashi marbling, color-blending washes, dip ‘n fold, creative stamping, and more. Each student will finish up with a generous supply of their original decorative design papers for using in a dozen special ways all year long.
Instructor: Susan M. Callan has been a devotee of Book Arts for over 25 years. In the mid 2000’s, she was invited to join a 12-artist team, each teaching their own discipline under the auspices of The Creativity Center. In that Center’s 5-year run here on Bainbridge, she discovered the genuine joy of sharing her Book Arts knowledge and skills with enthusiastic students. She’s been teaching (and, of course, still learning) all aspects of Book Arts and creativity ever since. Since 2017, she has taught BOOK ARTS; THE CREATIVITY FACTOR at the national Focus On Book Arts conference in Forest Grove, Oregon, in addition to several other venues closer to home..
The floors in the Print & Book Arts Studio will be sanded and varnished. The studio will be closed Dec. 23, 24, and 25 while the work is being done and to allow for adequate drying time.
If you have questions, please email: PrintandBook.Lead@bainbridgebarn.org.
Posted by Tammie on 10/12/2019
This is a BARN holiday. Doors will be locked to members and non-members.
Spend a holiday-week morning immersed in the world of wood engraving with Tony Drehfal, the Bloedel Reserve's visiting artist for the month of December. His free presentation promises to be of particular interest to printmakers, woodworkers and anyone captivated by the incredible detail possible with this art form.
The presentation is free but please register because the room capacity is limited.
Hailing from northern Wisconsin, Drehfal has been creating nature-themed wood engravings for nearly 20 years, ever since he attended a week-long class in West Virginia and began to tap into the resources offered by the Wood Engravers Network. You can see examples of his work at his website, www.tonydrehfal.com.
Wood engraving developed as a craft toward the end of the 18th century as a way to add detailed illustrations to letterpress prints. Unlike regular woodcuts, which are cut into the sides of boards, wood engravings are made into the end grain of very dense wood, such as English boxwood or holly. Instead of using regular woodcarving tools, wood engravers use tools called burins, which are like those used to engrave metal. Wood engravers usually carve blocks 0.918 of an inch thick, the height of metal type. That allows the engravings to be set alongside type in letterpress printing (including the letterpress at BARN).
Drehfal will show examples of his work and that of other engravers as he discusses the history of the craft and where it is headed now. He'll also explain some of the tools that engravers use, including spitstickers (a kind of burin) and leather-covered sandbags, which support wood blocks during engraving.
Middle schoolers: come on over to BARN after school on early release days for our Maker Monday sessions! In this series beginning January 6th, you will have the chance to explore the medium of printmaking with our dynamic instructor Lauren Campbell.
Over the course of six weeks, you will learn the techniques of carving into a soft material that you will then ink up and print onto a variety of surfaces, including paper, fabric, cork, and even a canvas pencil pouch! You will have the chance to fine tune at least two different blocks then print away to your heart's content.
Sign up with friends or on your own, and feel free to bring some good tunes to share. We'll provide snacks.
We're looking forward to seeing you at BARN this winter!
Ages: Current 7th and 8th graders
Questions? Email: jessh@bainbridgebarn.org
Shellac Plate printmaking is a low-tech and versatile technique for creating etching-like intaglio prints as well as subtly textured collographs. Because they are made with an illustration board substrate, shellac plates can be cut into an almost infinite variety of shapes, allowing the artist to build a “library” of images that can be combined on the press or through collage.
In this workshop, each student will create a series of shaped plates, which they will use to create both multi-layered prints and printed collage materials.
Students will be encouraged to experiment with a wide range of effects to express their own visual ideas and aesthetic.
Slip-cases are custom-made, open-ended boxes, intended to be snug, functional protection for special or fragile books. And they are! But they can also be fun, creative, and uniquely personalized. In this class, we will do both. You bring the book to be cased. You’ll leave with your finished slip-case, and a very happy book.
Instructor Bio:
Susan M. Callan has been a student and advocate of Book Arts since the early 1990’s. In the mid 2000’s, she was invited to join a 12-artist team, each teaching their own discipline under the auspices of The Creativity Center. Since then, she’s been teaching (and, of course, still learning) all aspects of Book Arts and Creativity. Since 2017, she has taught Book Arts; The Creativity Factor at the national Focus On Book Arts conference in Forest Grove, Oregon, in addition to other venues closer to home, Bainbridge Island.
Scan an image of ordinary objects or aim your camera at a spectacular scene. This workshop will take you through the basic steps of wrestling digital images into the simplicity of high contrast art ready for plate-making.
Using Photoshop Elements as our foundation, we will introduce the basic operations of photo manipulation to convert, modify, and resize images for making letterpress and intaglio printing plates. No prior experience with photo-manipulation software is required, but students should be comfortable with general computer operations on their own laptop computers. Students must bring their own laptop computer and power cord.
Through hands-on examples you will learn how to import a photograph or scan a drawing, modify its dimensions, shape, tone, and texture. We’ll look at methods for converting color images to high contrast, black-and-white illustrations. Drawing and editing tools will be explored along with basic digital typography. Techniques for separating elements for multiple color printing will be reviewed.
We’ll start by downloading the software (available on 30-day trial) and moving along at a comfortable pace before diving into the power of various filters to isolate key lines, graphic details, and textures, after which the instructors will give individual guidance specific to participants’ goals.
Tuition assistance is available. Click here to apply.
About the Instructors:
Carl Youngmann and Ellie Mathews are letterpress printers who teach the BARN’s Letterpress Boot Camp and Photopolymer courses. Carl has had a life-long relationship with photography, image analysis and manipulation, including a PhD in Cartography and Computer Graphics. He has taught remote sensing, developed medical image analysis software, and has generally messed around with a lot of cameras, computers, and printing presses. Ellie has worked in cartography, design, and software development. She has enhanced dozens of letterpress broadsides with graphic elements that began life as full-color photographs.
If you have any questions, please contact Peggy Graving, Program Coordinator for Letterpress: peg10173@gmail.com.
This class has prerequisites. Please see details.
This two-day workshop is the whole enchilada: type selection, type setting, paper selection, ink mixing, and overall deepening of your skill as a letterpress printer. Begin using the language of letterpress, the tools, and the materials of the craft while taking the plunge into the intricacies of registration for color work and combining type with graphic elements such as linoleum blocks - or even photopolymer plates (assuming you have one in your back pocket - if not, we'll provide samples).
We'll start by scooting through letterpress basics: working with type, locking up a form, and preparing a project for the press, where we'll focus on the three P's of make-ready: Packing, Pressure, and Positioning.
This is a skills and techniques workshop intended to ready you to work on your own projects with confidence during monitored Open Studios (members and non-members).
Instructors:
Ellie Mathews and Carl Youngmann operate The North Press in Port Townsend, where they specialize in designing and printing poetry broadsides, including haiku. They are excellent instructors, knowledgeable and patient and have gotten rave reviews from students at the BARN.
Please contact Letterpress Programming Coordinator, Peggy Graving (peg10173@gmail.com) if you have any questions
It’s easy enough to send out to have polymer plates made, but wouldn’t you like the control (and economy!) of making your own? Learn the process in this one-day workshop. Carl Youngmann and Ellie Mathews, letterpress printers, will demonstrate do-it-yourself, U-V exposure, water-wash methods for producing raised images using the BARN equipment or at home in your kitchen sink.
We’ll start by discussing high-contrast images—whether from photographs, digital files, or scanned drawings—from which we’ll select an example and make an inkjet negative. We'll expose the polymer to UV light, and we’ll process it in ordinary tap water. Then we’ll print proof copies. Specific products, timing and details will be outlined.
Instructors Bio: Ellie Mathews began using photo-polymer plates forty years ago to make Braille signage. More recently, Carl Youngmann has figured out the intricacies of printing ink-jet negatives, exposure times, and washout temperatures to make his own plates at home, sometimes by using nothing more complicated than the sun as his light source. Together, they will guide you through the basics and share their enthusiasm for DIY methods.
Monotype is a printmaking process that can lend itself to gestural and expressive mark making. You will be instructed in the use of a variety of printmaking approaches, including trace monotype, viscosity printing, and additive and subtractive methods which will include using brushes, rollers, rags, oil sticks, etc. to create unique images. All levels are welcome, from beginner to advanced with instruction tailored to individual needs and goals.
The monotype printmaking process lends itself to gestural and expressive mark making, and Eric will demonstrate viscosity printing, layering techniques and the use of alternative media in making monotypes.
About the InstructorEric Chamberlain, a Seattle based artist, shows his work at Shift Gallery in Seattle, and has exhibited with Shift at the Seattle Art Fair for the past three years. His work is included in a number of permanent collections, including the Museum of NW Art in La Conner, Hotel Max Seattle, and Meryl Lynch Bellevue. Eric currently teaches at Pratt Fine Arts Center in Seattle; his previous positions include art instruction at Creative Arts Week, Maine, Kirkland Arts Center, Washington, and Adjunct Professor, SMU, Texas.
"I continue to depict everyday objects, creating imagery that juxtaposes both imagined and observed memories. Recently, as I spend more time in the studio, I have begun to incorporate an array of bottles, jars, cans and architectural elements from my workspace.
blog.ericdaychamberlain.com
Be a Maker for a Day!
Check out our 10 studios, participate in making crafts or generally check out BARN! It's free, and open to all ages.
More information will be posted later in October 2019.
For more information contact: info@BainbridgeBARN.org
