Posts Categorized: Duration

Studio Access Training: Screenprinting

Studio Authorization is always required prior to attending your first Open Studio or becoming a Keyholder. Experience is required for all Studio Access Trainings. Authorizations are free or you can pay what you can as a donation to Spudnik!

Please take some time to read and ensure that you meet the minimum requirements stated below.

What Are Studio Access Trainings?

Studio Access Trainings ensure that those with have prior experience from school or another print studio will be proficient and confident using the equipment in our studio.

What you can expect:

These sessions are NOT lessons, but specifically for makers who already have thorough experience with similar equipment. 

Minimum Requirements to Become Authorized:

  • Have recent experience with the equipment you would like to use (within 2 years)
  • Have thorough experience with the equipment you would like to use (8-week class or equivalent; Experience required varies based on process and equipment).
  • Be comfortable working independently.
  • Demonstrate safe and clean printmaking or art-making habits.
  • Demonstrate respect to our staff and our equipment.

If you do not meet these requirements, please enroll in a class that includes authorization or schedule a series of private lessons. 

Studio Access Training: Screenprinting

We will share Spudnik’s guidelines and protocol for the entire process from image prep to screen reclamation, with a focus on care and maintenance of tools and supplies. The authorization will address paper printing, and fabric printing by request (including using our t-shirt press and heat press).

In studio projects will allow participants to review preparing images, making films or stencils, selecting and coating screens, using our vacuum table exposure unit and washout booth, setting up a print station, and reclaiming screens for future use.We will address printing technique as it relates to properly using the equipment, and how to best share space in a high-traffic area of the shop. We will also cover how to reserve screens and special equipment, use shared materials, and clean up properly.

November 2-3 | WEEKEND INTENSIVE: Block Printing (2 Days)

First 3 students who enroll get a $25 discount off our registration fee ($195 for 2 days)!

Relief prints are created by carving an image into a block of wood or linoleum, adding ink to the surface, and transferring the inked image onto paper.

In this weekend class, students will spend Saturday learning to plan and carve their own blocks. They can take their blocks home to finish carving and bring them back on Sunday to print. Students will learn techniques for inking and printing blocks with a press and by hand, as well as ways to bring color into their work.

First 3 students who enroll get a $25 discount off our registration fee ($195 for 2 days)!

November 5 | Risography 101 (1 Day)

The Risograph is an automated duplicator from Japan that efficiently produces offset-like prints in a variety of saturated colors. Though not originally intended for artistic application, the machine has gained traction (and notoriety) in small-press culture for its distinctive effects and efficiency—as well as for being rather finicky.

This workshop will walk students through the fundamentals of risography for bookmaking and fine art printing. Students will learn techniques and best practices for reproducing imagery, giving consideration to ink density, drying time, paper choices, registration, and patience. Students will become acquainted with the mechanics of the printer and learn basic maintenance, including how to change the master roll and a drum’s ink tube. Everyone will leave with an individually designed two-layer print.

Students will receive risography authorization and an Open Studio coupon, redeemable for one complimentary Open Studio session within the following 60 days. 

November 5 | Intro to Screenprinting (4 Weeks)

Note: This 4-week class will be skipping November 26th and will therefore conclude on December 3rd.

Screenprinting is an art form known for its bold graphics and versatility. It is an approachable art form, yet has many facets to explore and master. This foundational screenprinting class introduces all the basic skills to get someone new to the process up and running, creating art on both paper and fabric. 

A selections of projects will offer students the opportunity to produce prints from drawings, digital designs, and found or photographic imagery. Students will become familiar with the full process from selecting the right screen for the job, to dark room exposure, to mixing inks, to printing, to reclaiming the screens. With support from an experienced printer, students will practice printing and (equally important) troubleshooting.

By the end of this class, students will know their way around the print shop and be authorized to continue printing independently at Spudnik Press  through our Open Studio program.

Studio Access Training: Letterpress (Platen Press)

Studio Authorization is always required prior to attending your first Open Studio or becoming a Keyholder. Experience is required for all Studio Access Trainings. Authorizations are free or you can pay what you can as a donation to Spudnik!

Please take some time to read and ensure that you meet the minimum requirements stated below.

What Are Studio Access Trainings?

Studio Access Trainings ensure that those with have prior experience from school or another print studio will be proficient and confident using the equipment in our studio.

What you can expect:

These sessions are NOT lessons, but specifically for makers who already have thorough experience with similar equipment. 

Minimum Requirements to Become Authorized:

  • Have recent experience with the equipment you would like to use (within 2 years)
  • Have thorough experience with the equipment you would like to use (8-week class or equivalent; Experience required varies based on process and equipment).
  • Be comfortable working independently.
  • Demonstrate safe and clean printmaking or art-making habits.
  • Demonstrate respect to our staff and our equipment.

If you do not meet these requirements, please enroll in a class that includes authorization or schedule a series of private lessons.

Studio Access Training: Letterpress

This 2-hour authorization will allow participants to be authorized to print on our platen presses (Pilot and Pearl). Printers may need to book a second on-site session to be authorized for both types of presses.

Every letterpress authorization will ensure that printers are familiar with setting up the press, mixing inks, inking the press, adjusting pressure and registration, printing, and thorough cleaning of the press and all tools. There may not be time to practice printing both a polymer plate and movable type, but both methods can be reviewed as needed.

As with all our Studio Access Trainings, we will also cover equipment available to check out and press reservation policies.

November 7 | De-Mystifying Grants, Residencies, Exhibitions (VIRTUAL)

You can pay what you can for this virtual class as a donation to Spudnik Press.

Would you like to build more of your livelihood around your art practice, or get your work out into the world more? Spudnik Press is offering a variety of virtual workshops on Professional Practices for Artists!

Topic for the November 7 session:

De-Mystifying Grants, Residencies, and Calls for Exhibitions

Professional Practices for Artists is a series of online stand-alone workshops that focus on different professional skills and practices that working artists depend on for entrepreneurship in the real world — helping you make a good start on your goals!

This class is free for members! Not a member yet? You can sign up as a Spudnik Member here.

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Educational programs at Spudnik Press are partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency and Builder’s Initiative.

This project is partially supported by a Chicago Arts Recovery Program grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events.

November 9 | Screenprinting Refresher/Authorization (1 Day)

This class is free or you can pay what you can as a donation to Spudnik!

This refresher/authorization workshop welcomes students with previous screenprinting experience who are feeling out-of-practice or fuzzy regarding the finer points of the process, or who have never printed at Spudnik before, and want familiarity with our facilities and offerings. Students should have already completed a one-day workshop or full class, although it need not have been at Spudnik. We also welcome printers that would like support working through a particularly complex project or reoccurring printing issue.

Teaching Artist Rob Kelsey will review an assortment of skills such as selecting the best mesh count, applying the perfect coat of photo emulsion, troubleshooting and diagnosing exposure and printing issues, ink mixing, registration, and screen reclamation. Equally as importantly, we will address how to consider these technical factors and limitations when designing a project for printing.

During the workshops, each student will expose a screen, and work with peers to print a two-color image designed to hone nuanced printing skills. Students are welcome to bring specific questions about their next project.

To help build printing confidence at Open Studio sessions, students are invited to return within the week to put their freshly acquired knowledge to use. Through this workshop, students will not only brush up on old skills and become authorized to print at Spudnik, but are sure to walk away with new morsels of useful information regarding the art of screenprinting.

This class is FREE and open to the public. Registration is required to manage the number of participants and prepare the materials needed for the workshop. Donations are welcome and absolutely optional, and will help Spudnik Press with its operational expenses.

About the Campaign:

Make At Spudnik is a series of 1-day workshops that is free and open to the public, as an effort to reach more print-curious audiences and provide an opportunity for interested participants to experience printmaking basics without the financial barrier to learning.

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Educational programs at Spudnik Press are partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency and Builder’s Initiative.

This project is partially supported by a Chicago Arts Recovery Program grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events.

November 12 | Bookbinding 101: Simple Self-Publishing (1-Day)

This workshop focuses on styles of bookbinding that are low-cost yet dynamic, and well suited for poetry chapbooks and portfolio books. Students will learn how to choose materials and create simple book structures that best highlight the content within their book.

The lessons will address the logistics of organizing poetry or artwork into a book form, explore the book as a vessel for information, and how material choices can inform how the book is read. While the workshop will create blank books, each style of binding will begin with standard 8.5” x 11” paper to allow your poetry or artistic content to be easily printed from a common inkjet or laser printer. 

Students will complete four sample books: Two pamphlet stitch varieties, a perfect bound book, and a more elaborate Japanese stab binding.

In addition to learning hand skills, the class will discuss the history of chapbooks, their role in publishing over time, and ways to share and sell chapbooks. If you have writing or images you would like to promote, this is a great workshop to jump start your self-publishing!

December 5 | Artist Self-Promotion & Communications (VIRTUAL)

You can pay what you can for this virtual class as a donation to Spudnik Press.

Would you like to build more of your livelihood around your art practice, or get your work out into the world more? Spudnik Press is offering a variety of virtual workshops on Professional Practices for Artists!

Topic for the December 5 session:

Self-Promotion & Communications for Independent Artists

Professional Practices for Artists is a series of online stand-alone workshops that focus on different professional skills and practices that working artists depend on for entrepreneurship in the real world — helping you make a good start on your goals!

This class is free for members! Not a member yet? You can sign up as a Spudnik Member here.

—–

Educational programs at Spudnik Press are partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency and Builder’s Initiative.

This project is partially supported by a Chicago Arts Recovery Program grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events.