In this three hour workshop, students are guided through the basics of creating faux postage (a.k.a “artistamps”) using a variety of different techniques. Students begin the workshop studying examples, gathering both inspiration and know-how; then students spend time creating their own perforated stamp sheets!

By the end of the workshop, everyone will have a completed sheet of self-created artistamps and the skills to use SFCB’s Rossbach perforator, available for rent.

Prerequisite:
None

Materials to Bring:
Any small size "mark-making" tools that you like to use – smaller is better, as students will be creating postage stamp size work. (Be sure to keep this in mind when selecting your tools!) Examples of mark making tools would be: rubber stamps, pen & ink, graphite pencil, felt pen, colored pencil, etc.

About the Instructor:
Jennie Hinchcliff (she/her) has been teaching classes in bookbinding and related arts since 2001. Her bookworks can be seen in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art's Special Collection, the Cooper-Hewitt National Museum of Design, the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley, and the Stadtbibliothek zu Berlin (among others). She is a co-author of "Good Mail Day: A Primer for Eye-Popping Post" which explores the infinite possibilities of correspondence art and produces the podcast “Senders Receive”, interviewing postal moderns and long time Networkers.

Jennie is the Director of Exhibitions and Artist Programs at SFCB.

Clamshell presentation boxes are a staple of the binder's trade.

In this class, students will learn to construct a clamshell box from pre-cut parts. By focusing on construction and covering, the focus of this class will be on building hand skills and gaining a general understanding of the clamshell box structure.

Students will learn critical aspects of tray construction, cover making, casing in, and options for labels and inlays. Also addressed will be various alterations and enhancements of the clamshell structure. 

Students in this class will not have the opportunity to make a custom-sized box. They will be working from pre-cut pieces, but will complete the class with some understanding of how to approach boxmaking on their own. More experienced students who wish to learn how to measure and cut for a custom box should watch for Advanced Box Making classes in the future.

Prerequisite:
None

Materials to Bring:
All tools and materials will be provided. Students are welcome to bring their own hand tools.

About the Instructor:
Brian Lieske (he/him) wandered into SFCB several years ago and continues to haunt the place. He completed both the bookbinding and letterpress cores as well as several of the summer historic structure classes. He enjoys making fully hand-sewn books and still fights to not over-tighten his kettle stitches. He’s lived in San Francisco for more than 20 years having arrived shortly after completing an MFA at the University of Texas at Austin.

Cylinder Core Certificate Program

The four class Cylinder Core Certificate Program allows students to move quickly through press basics while also addressing relief printing in general. Students who finish the four Core classes are qualified to rent press time as well as move on to more advanced classes and techniques. Core classes must be taken in order, 1 through 4.

Click here to learn more about the Cylinder Core Certificate Program and how to receive a discount!

Cylinder Core 1: Experience Letterpress!

Dig in to the tradition and history of letterpress printing and get your hands dirty. Learn about the process and practice of setting type, mixing inks and pulling impressions. Students will design and print a small edition of a single-color folded greeting card using the type and cuts (images) in the SFCB collection.

SFCB's Windgate Scholarship Fund is dedicated to providing need-based financial support to individuals interested in learning bookbinding, letterpress printing, and related book arts. Click here to apply.

Prerequisite:
None

Materials to bring:
All tools and materials will be provided. Students can come with a few phrases/ideas for their greeting card.

Please note: Class projects are for learning particular skills and supporting class dynamics. Project ideas should be flexible, open to what class time and communal studio use will permit.

About the Instructor:
Alan Hillesheim (he/him) has been wrenching around printing presses for 35 years. Printing presses need to be moved, oiled, inked, cleaned, and maintained, in short they need attention like a six year old. Maintenance is a dirty business, but a necessary one for beautifully printed anything. Alan has a passion for the mechanics of the print studio and enjoys encouraging others to roll up their sleeves and grab a wrench. His 35 years in the letterpress business and “all-ten-fingers” count speak for themselves. Join him and wear old clothes. Oh, and once the press is in fine order, Alan has a few secrets to divulge about perfect inking and stellar printing.

This is a three session online workshop meeting on Tuesdays, October 7, 14 and 21.

Gelli plates are a versatile tool for experimenting with printing layers and textures, and this class gives lots of opportunity for play.

In our first week, we will generate fodder for future collage through drawings, mark making and gelli plate printing. Demos will include a variety of techniques to produce a variety of prints. Students will create prints to be used as backgrounds, to be cut into shapes and elements within a collage, and also transparent layers. Students will be encouraged to continue experiments during our second session. For our third and final meeting, we will sort what we created, and discuss how to reproduce our favorite prints. Then we will use our papers for collage and discuss special considerations for materials.

Online workshops are recorded; video links will be emailed to registered students after each session, and recordings will be available for eight weeks after the final class meeting.

Prerequisite:
None

Materials to Bring:

• Gelli plate or homemade gelatin plate, between 4 x 6" and 8 x 10"
• 1 brayer
• 3 colors acrylic paint (cheap paint is just great)
• 2 different paint brushes
• Tray for water
• Rags
• 25-40 sheets of paper, slightly larger than your plate: drawing paper, vellum and/or tracing paper. Not slick or coated
• Cardstock for stencils
• Thin cardboard (cereal or cracker box okay)
• Pencil

Optional:

• Ribs (usually for shaping clay)
• Combs
• Rubber-tipped tools
• Cotton swabs
• Fresh plant material (not dried)

About the Instructor:
Hope Amico (they/them) is a visual artist, writer and educator who believes we could all use a creative practice. Through classes, collage meetups and the Keep Writing postcard project, they are excited to share ways we can work together and support each other creatively. Co-founder of the New Orleans Collage Collective and previously known as gutwrench press, they relocated to Portland, OR in 2020. They teach online and in-person through the MCBA, SFCB and privately through their own studio.

Hand lettering for all levels! Join us for this innovative and welcoming approach to hand lettering with the talented Billy Ola Hutchinson.

This three session crash course in calligraphy will provide students with the building blocks necessary to continue their calligraphy practice on their own. Each of the three evenings will focus on a different hand: Billy's informal take on Gothic, Italic, and Copperplate. Students will learn foundational techniques such as pen position, how individual letters relate to one another, and how to rule out lines for alignment. They'll also learn hacks for how to avoid ruling out entirely!

Students will complete the course with an understanding of basic penmanship and letter formation, as well as the processes, materials, and layout techniques used in calligraphy. Most materials will be supplied.

Prerequisite:
None

Materials to bring:

• Mechanical pencil
• Ultra Fine Point Sharpie, preferably in red but any color will do
• C-Thru® B-85; 2" x 18" 8ths Graph Beveled Ruler in Inches

About the Instructor:
Billy Ola Hutchinson’s passion for lettering began in pre-school with the assistance of Mommy Billie. Billy and Billie spent hours shaping letterforms day in and day out. Later in life, Little Billy parlayed that lettering passion into a calligraphic profession, creating a petit line of stationery, penning custom lettering for clients, designing a line of porcelain for San Francisco's luxury speciality store, Gump’s and of course as an instructor at SFCB—taking students through those first steps Little Billy took with Big Billie. Billy's lettering has been featured in magazines, wedding invitations, place cards, monograms, and brand identities.

While bookbinding and book repair share many skills and techniques, they are also distinct pursuits. This course will introduce the student familiar with bookbinding to key practices within basic book repair.

This will include how to mend various tears, losses, and splits with different types of Japanese paper as well as an introduction to localized humidification and flattening. Key items discussed in this class will be a brief history of book conservation, the difference between conservation and restoration, and how to choose the proper adhesive and Japanese paper in different scenarios.

Through both discussion and hands-on practice, students will get the answers to these questions and more in order to start to appreciate the challenges and rewards of book repair.

Topics addressed/activities will include:

• The history of book conservation
• Conservation ethics
• How to distinguish different types of adhesives used in conservation; students will discuss and touch various papers used in conservation
• Various types of paper mending and strengthening with kozo tissue and paste
• Humidification and flattening
• How to make a custom-fitted conservation enclosure

SFCB's Windgate Scholarship Fund is dedicated to providing need-based financial support to individuals interested in learning bookbinding, letterpress printing, and related book arts. Click here to apply.

Prerequisites:
None, though some bookbinding experience or experience in the safe handling of fragile items is recommended.

Materials to bring:
All tools and materials will be provided.

About the Instructor:
Clair Emma Smith (she/her) is a bookbinder specializing in repair located in Oakland, California. She found her love of bookbinding during an art conservation internship at a historical society in Indiana, and she has been setting up her dream home studio ever since. Clair Emma relocated to the Bay Area after graduating from North Bennet Street School's bookbinding program in 2019 and works in private practice for both herself and other conservators as Bouguereau Bindery. 

Cylinder Core Certificate Program

The four class Cylinder Core Certificate Program allows students to move quickly through press basics while also addressing relief printing in general. Students who finish the four Core classes are qualified to rent press time as well as move on to more advanced classes and techniques. Core classes must be taken in order, 1 through 4.

Click here to learn more about the Cylinder Core Certificate Program and how to receive a discount!

Cylinder Core 2: Power of the Broadside

A broadside is a single-sided printed sheet historically used for advertisements, proclamations, or other public announcements, though in modern times they're most often used for poetry.

In Core 2 you'll build your letterpress skills: learn advanced justification, typesetting, and composition, then put it all together to print a single-color 8 x 10" broadside of your own design.

SFCB's Windgate Scholarship Fund is dedicated to providing need-based financial support to individuals interested in learning bookbinding, letterpress printing, and related book arts. Click here to apply.

Prerequisite:
Cylinder Core 1

Materials to Bring:
All tools and materials are provided. 

Students can bring some ideas for what to set as multi-line text, with the understanding that the instructor will have final say in what will be appropriate for this project. Poems, song lyrics, and pithy paragraphs are good candidates.

Please note: Class projects are for learning particular skills and supporting class dynamics. Project ideas should be flexible, open to what class time and communal studio use will permit.

About the Instructor:
Brian Ferrett (he/him) has a printing degree from MATC and worked in offset web and screen printing. In 2008 he joined M&H Type as a typecasting apprentice under Lewis Mitchell. These days he manages M&H's daily operations, maintains the historic casting machines and presses, casts type, and prints for the various Arion Press publications. Brian is a member of the Northern California chapter of the American Printing History Association, the American Typecaster Fellowship, and volunteers with San Francisco Public Library's annual Valentine’s Day broadside event. In his spare time he plays around with his Vandercook 219AB, C&P New Style 10x15, and his two Kelseys.

Buttonhole books come with personality on the spine and cover. Set your glue aside – these easy-to-learn non-adhesive bindings are great for writing and sketching in.

Students in this workshop will examine various examples of this binding structure and make their own buttonhole journal, using various decorative papers and cover cutouts.

Prerequisite:
None

Materials to Bring:
All tools and materials will be provided

About the Instructor:
Dorothy Yuki (she/her) studied to be something other than an artist. She began as a fashion designer immediately after college but soon she became a partner of a manufacturing company. After its sale, she worked as a production and design consultant with many identity and music production companies, as well as new startups. While living in Tequisquiapan, she became involved with the Sierra Gorda Ecological Group and taught small communities to become self-sustaining. Now in her 80s and living in San Francisco, she is engaged in many volunteer activities. She was past President of Friends of Calligraphy and has been a Master Educator for the Macy’s Fashion Incubator San Francisco. To find out more about Dorothy's work, visit her blog at dotsrainbow.com.