Undergraduate Overview

For the beginning student this course offers a concentrated introduction to the entire stencil making and printing process. The advanced student may explore the more sophisticated techniques of digital and photographic stencil-making, photo-mechanical darkroom and printing work.

Artists' Books is a beginning/intermediate level course that focuses on the fundamental techniques of bookbinding so as to be able to design and produce one or an edition of artists' books and boxes. The class begins by learning a range of traditional binding techniques, discussing material choices, and learning about the history of artists' books. Later on breaking out of the box to take risks, explore concepts and unconventional materials will be strongly encouraged for individual projects. In addition, the intention of this class is to meld your own studio work and personal expression with the form of artists' books.

Sensitivity & Exposure explores the intersection of photography and printmaking through processes activated by pressure and light. Students develop technical skills while approaching print as a site-responsive medium¿sensitive to contact, light, time, material, and context.
Beginning with embossing and frottage, students consider pressure as a means of recording the scale, texture, and topography of objects, surfaces, and sites. These direct forms of contact introduce questions of indexicality and documentation that carry into cyanotype and gelatin silver printing, where photosensitive materials replace physical pressure as a means of registering objects, surfaces, duration, and space. Building on these analogue processes, students use digital fabrication to translate photographic images into laser-engraved linoleum blocks and photogravure plates, extending questions of exposure and reproduction into relief and intaglio printing.
Historical and contemporary artists provide critical frameworks for considering how these techniques developed and how their material and conceptual possibilities matter today. Jennifer L. Roberts¿s Contact: Art and the Pull of Print provides a key framework for examining contact, transfer, pressure, reversal, and reproduction across photography and printmaking.
The course combines demonstrations, studio experimentation, projects, readings, discussions, and critiques. The summer session is offered as an intensive, lab-based version focused on two processes: cyanotype and photogravure.

Sensitivity & Exposure explores the intersection of photography and printmaking through processes activated by pressure and light. Students develop technical skills while approaching print as a site-responsive medium¿sensitive to contact, light, time, material, and context.
Beginning with embossing and frottage, students consider pressure as a means of recording the scale, texture, and topography of objects, surfaces, and sites. These direct forms of contact introduce questions of indexicality and documentation that carry into cyanotype and gelatin silver printing, where photosensitive materials replace physical pressure as a means of registering objects, surfaces, duration, and space. Building on these analogue processes, students use digital fabrication to translate photographic images into laser-engraved linoleum blocks and photogravure plates, extending questions of exposure and reproduction into relief and intaglio printing.
Historical and contemporary artists provide critical frameworks for considering how these techniques developed and how their material and conceptual possibilities matter today. Jennifer L. Roberts¿s Contact: Art and the Pull of Print provides a key framework for examining contact, transfer, pressure, reversal, and reproduction across photography and printmaking.
The course combines demonstrations, studio experimentation, projects, readings, discussions, and critiques. The summer session is offered as an intensive, lab-based version focused on two processes: cyanotype and photogravure.

In the last twenty years, the Risograph machine has become a powerful tool in the hands of artists and self-publishers. Students in this course will learn advanced methods of printing, spot color layering and color-separation along with becoming immersed in the rich global culture of RIsograph printing and publishing.
The class will consist of demonstrations, lectures and presentations on current Risograph practitioners, visits with artists and publishers, trips to school collections and the prodigious production of strange and beautiful printed objects. Lectures and readings may include the work of artists Sigrid Calon, Lale Westvind, Joe Kessler, and the publishers Colorama, Perfectly Acceptable, Colour Code, The Charles Nypels Lab, Animal Press, Tan and Loose, and others.

Students will acquire knowledge of the vibrant world of Risograph-printed art and skills in Risograph machine operation, color separation, publishing software such as Adobe Illustrator and Spectorlite, along with the operation binding and finishing equipment. Students will apply this knowledge of the context of Risograph printing and publishing to inform their planning and execution of their own sophisticated printed multiples.

Students will be expected to produce 3-4 projects demonstrating technical proficiency and contextual grounding. These projects will be refined during regular one-on-one meetings and discussed in three group critiques. The course will culminate in a show of student work.

This intermediate studio will explore Lithography as an expanded practice for creating fine art prints that are both innovative and experimental. The course will focus on both individual and collaborative projects to expand the notions and practice of traditional lithography by combining it with other artistic practices. Students will be introduced to a range of printing techniques within the Printmedia Lithography studio area, including multi-color and plate-based lithography with hand-drawn, digital and photo based options for creating images. Examples of lithographs, short readings, and a visit to the AIC Prints and Drawings collection will support project development and discussion. Students can expect to complete three to five projects and participate in two critiques.