Frances Lightbound

Explore the exciting world of handmade artists' books and zines! In this course, you will explore different approaches to making books as artworks in their own right, ranging from the practical to the sculptural and from unique objects to editioned multiples. Use your preferred medium to develop content for your books - drawing, painting, printing, writing, photography, or other experimental approaches - and explore additional processes like laser cutting and risograph printing to push your ideas further. You'll have access to a range of digital printing options on campus. Contemporary and historic artists' book and zine projects will be explored through presentations, discussions, samples, and visiting the Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection. By the end of the course, you will have experience in several book construction techniques, an awareness of options for self-publishing and distribution for zines, and will have developed a final project in a format that effectively conveys your ideas - and puts them right into someone's hands.

This course is designed for artists interested in learning experimental printmaking techniques but who do not necessarily have access to a print studio. Technical processes may include transfers, monoprints, linocuts, basic lithography, repeat patterns, and digital printing on fabric, focusing on the potential for experimental approaches in each area. These processes can be transferred easily from the classroom to the artist¿s workspace. Class discussions will focus on transformations that occur when printing a unique image or multiple and the potential to push these processes in new directions. The processes addressed will allow students to experiment with their existing drawings, photographs, or designs or to develop entirely new work during the course. This class is suitable for artists of all disciplines, both with and without prior printmaking experience.

Explore an overview of printmaking techniques that don't require a dedicated print studio. This course is designed to give a brief overview of basic printmaking processes, such as monotype, relief, image transfer, and basic screen printing. Each technique will be explored through an introductory project, culminating in one final personalized project at the end of the course. Experiment with a variety of approaches to techniques and materials, and discover the creative and critical potential of the multiple within the broader field of contemporary art and visual culture. Artists of all disciplines, both with and without prior printmaking experience, are encouraged to join.

This class will guide students on a deep dive into the possibilities of monoprint and monotype - painterly printmaking processes that lend themselves to immediacy and experimentation while producing finessed and complex imagery. The class will introduce a variety of monotyping processes, as well as elements of collagraph and chine collé, then cover multi-layer registration, allowing for the planning and production of more complex compositions. Student work may incorporate elements of drawing, painting, and collage in combination with printmaking techniques, with the option to use SAIC laser cutters to produce photo-based printing plates. Students will have the opportunity to draw upon both the collections of the Art Institute and the immediate environment of downtown Chicago in their work as they produce several unique prints and variable editions during this one-week intensive.

Cultivate a regular sketchbook practice to develop new ideas, stay accountable to your creative goals, and refine the direction of your work. Explore sketching, collaging, painting, and writing, as you investigate how the personal nature of an artist's sketchbook can catapult work to the next level. During one class meeting, handmade sketchbooks are made using an array of book construction methods. You will also review the history of artists sketchbooks and draw from the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago for inspiration.

Cultivate a regular sketchbook practice to develop new ideas, stay accountable to your creative goals, and refine the direction of your work. Explore sketching, collaging, painting, and writing, as you investigate how the personal nature of an artist's sketchbook can catapult work to the next level. During one class meeting, handmade sketchbooks are made using an array of book construction methods. You will also review the history of artists sketchbooks and draw from the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago for inspiration.

This course offers students the opportunity to explore printmedia as a viable contemporary practice. Students will examine the formal qualities of the printed mark as well as issues of multiplicity, replication, and dissemination inherent to the medium. To aid student understanding, this course will balance discussions of relevant artists and thinkers with a range of technical and conceptual approaches. Students will engage in two processes which may include screenprinting, plate lithography, relief printmaking, intaglio, and book arts depending on the faculty. Students will learn additional print techniques like stencils, monoprints, and participate in a Risography print exchange, in conjunction with concepts germane to this diverse and historically significant area of creative production. Guided by assigned readings, presentations, assignments and group critiques students will develop a body of work in dialogue with contemporary printmedia.

Students are introduced to basic intaglio methods such as drypoint, etching, soft ground, aquatint, chine colle, multi-plate printing, and color ink techniques. Use of specific tools and papers is an essential part of the course. Through examples, discussion, and demonstrations students will learn to identify and select methods that suit their expressive needs and concepts.

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 concepts and processes activated by pressure and light. Students develop technical skills while considering print as a site-responsive medium¿sensitive to contact, light, time, material, and context. Beginning with embossing and frottage, the course moves through cyanotype and gelatin silver printing to digital fabrication, laser-engraved linoleum blocks, and photogravure, with each process building conceptually and materially on the previous one. Historical and contemporary artists provide critical frameworks for examining indexicality, contact, transfer, exposure, and reproduction. Through projects, experimentation, readings, and critiques, students learn to use these processes in support of their artistic ideas. The summer session focuses intensively on 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.