Learn how to print on the Risograph, a machine that combines the ease of a photocopier with the stencil concept of silkscreen. A Risograph creates a stencil for each layer, printing a single color at a time. Inks are semi-opaque, so when layered two colors can create a third overlay.

Students will explore the process of digital Risograph printing through hands-on practice. They'll learn the basics of preparing digital files and using the equipment. Color separations & resizing of images will be discussed using Photoshop. By the end of the session, they'll have a small stack of Risograph prints to take home.

This workshop focuses on the digital approach to printing with a Risograph. The Introduction to Analog Risograph Printing workshop focuses on printing from paper substrates laid on the glass (like a photocopier). Either class will suffice as the prerequisite for the Risograph Certification workshop, though students are welcome to take both. Successful completion of the certification allows students to rent time on SFCB's Risograph.

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

Tools/Materials to bring:

• REQUIRED: Laptop computer, ideally Mac (not an iPad), with Spectrolite software downloaded; Photoshop is not required but will be discussed. If you don't have a laptop, please sign up for the Analog workshop instead.
• A digital file you’d like to print, it does not have to be color separated. Print size will be 8.5 X 11" or 11 x 17". 

About the Instructor: Yasmeen Abedifard is an Iranian-American artist born in the San Francisco Bay Area and is currently based in Oakland. She holds an MFA from Cornell University. Her work is centered around storytelling mediums, including comics, illustrations, and animation.

She is currently teaching in the Comics program at The California College of the Arts (CCA), the UC Berkeley Art Studio, CCA Extension, and Dominican University. Her work has been featured in various spaces, such as the SF Art Book Fair, Rubenstein Arts Center, Shapeshifters Cinema, Jack Hanley Gallery, and San Francisco Center for the Book, and has received various accolades, including the Ignatz Award for Outstanding Minicomic for Death Bloom and the Mocca Award of Excellence for When to Pick a Pomegranate. She has taught comic workshops at BAMPFA, Mendocino Art Center, Secret Room, Kala Art Institute, Sequential Artists Workshop, and Black Mountain Institute. She has created several published comics, such as When to Pick a Pomegranate (pub. Silver Sprocket), Death Bloom (pub. Lucky Pocket), and Burnt (pub. Wiggle Bird Mailing Club).

She is also part of a comics collective called D.R.Y. with her peers, Daniel Zhou and Raul Higuera, aimed at fostering community and highlighting the Bay Area comics scene.

If you have taken the introduction to paper marbling and enjoyed it, this advanced class provides you with the opportunity to try your hand at even more complex patterns, explore the color wheel and experiment more with your favorite palette. Pietro will skip all the introductory talks about paper marbling and, after a brief recap for rusty minds, start with some more advanced demonstration. Another main goal of this class will be the introduction of the use of metallic paint and give tips on how it could be “domesticated”.

Last but not least we’ll be talking about the many possibilities that overmarbling offers and you will execute 3 of such patterns. Also, this class is designed to accommodate the needs of special projects that students may have or envision (you can notify Pietro of your specific project in advance).

*Please note that paper marbling is a wet process and papers made in the workshop may not be dry at the end of class. Students may return to SFCB after the workshop to retrieve any papers left to dry at the of the day.  

Prerequisite: Introduction to Western Paper Marbling, Pietro's Paper Marbling online workshop, Introduction to Fabric Marbling, or other marbling experience.

Materials to bring: All tools and materials will be provided. Please wear comfortable shoes for standing that you don't mind getting wet.

About the Instructor: Pietro Accardi (he/him) owned a Bookbindery in Turin (Italy) for 12 years. He worked for Turin’s main Library, Municipal Archives, and University Libraries restoring and binding documents and books. He also runs his own paper marbling and decorative box making business. Now he lives near Lake Tahoe with wife, cats and a studio. He is currently working for the library of special collections of University of Reno doing restoration work and teaches workshops.

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. 

Learn basic bookbinding structures and stitches that every beginning book artist should know!

Students will learn five staple structures of the bookbinding world: pamphlet stitch, two versions of one-sheet wonders, accordion folding, and a Japanese stab binding. If you’ve been curious about book arts basics, this is a great starter class; in three hours, you’ll gain the know-how to start making books of your own.

Students also learn about local resources, bookbinding tools, and SFCB’s Bookbinding Core Program, as well as protocol for studio rental. 

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.

About the Instructor: Mimi Zycherman (she/her) is a Book Conservator at a Bay Area Institution. She graduated from the North Bennet Street School’s Bookbinding program in 2023. She also received a BA in Art and Materials Conservation from Columbia College Chicago. In addition to a fellowship at the Boston Athenæum, she has interned in conservation labs at Dartmouth, Harvard, and New York City’s Municipal Archives. She specializes in fine design bindings that have been exhibited throughout the U.S. Mimi is also a member of the Guild of Bookworkers and the Hand Bookbinders of California.

If you have heard about letterpress but are not really sure what it is or how it works, this class will allow you to peer inside the rich history and engaging techniques of letterpress printing.

This class introduces the process, the materials, the machines, and the satisfaction of printing by hand on a Cylinder proof press. Participants will learn the basics of setting type using SFCB’s vast collection of lead type and decorative ornaments as well as inking, locking up and pulling a print.

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: None

About the Instructor: Brian Lieske (he/him) wandered into SFCB many 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.

The Presentation Album was developed as an answer to a question: how to create a simple album which can house photographs in an elegant embossed page without swelling the book? 

The album is very handsome, with pages made from a good quality card. Each page has an impressed panel to house the photographs; the finished panels resemble the impression of an etching plate. The pages are hinged together on the inside with thick paper strips, and a small amount of PVA is all that’s needed to hold it all together — no need for sewing. The album has cloth joints for strength and an attractive cloth cover, and like the Ideal Sketchbook, opens beautifully flat.

If time allows, students will tool their finished binding with creative lines and circles, using traditional finishing tools and both carbon and colourful metallic foils. 

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: Students should have some experience working with glue and paper/cloth; Bookbinding Core 2 (flat back case binding) or equivalent experience.

Materials to bring: All tools and materials will be provided. Students are also welcome to bring any of their own favorite bookbinding tools.

About the Instructor: Michael Burke (he/him) studied bookbinding with Dominic Riley and paper conservation with Karen Zukor. Michael lives in England, where he teaches bookbinding as well at events across the UK. Michael researches the structures of ancient and medieval bindings and received his Masters degree in the History of the Book from the University of London in 2011.

Michael is a co-founder of Book Camp, an immersive residential bookbinding experience which aims to teach new generations of binders.

Strong, elegant and pleasing to use, this structure is modelled on the nineteenth century artists' sketchbooks and journals, similar to the ones used by Wordsworth and Ruskin as they wandered across the Lake District to draw and write. It is an honest structure made simply and from high quality materials, opens beautifully and is very durable. It can be made at home with no equipment, just a few simple tools, and since it is not 'cased-in' requires very little pressing.

The pages are made from good cartridge paper, ideal for pen-and-ink drawing, pencil sketching or writing. Working from full sized sheets, we will fold and slit the paper to give a beautiful, feathery deckled edge. We will then sew the book with linen thread on strong tapes, and sew in a cloth hinge for strength. The book is rounded, for easy opening, but not backed, eliminating the need for a press. The case, or cover, is made from cushioned boards covered in strong natural canvas that can withstand all the hard knocks associated with going 'out into the field'. Time permitting, the cover is then tooled with carbon and gold to personalise this simple handmade binding.

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: Bookbinding Core 2 or equivalent experience preparing a textblock.

Tools/Materials to bring: None. All tools and materials will be provided. Students are also welcome to bring any of their own favorite bookbinding tools.

About the Instructor: Dominic Riley (he/him) is an internationally renowned bookbinder, artist, lecturer and teacher. He has his bindery in England, from where he travels across the UK teaching and lecturing. He spends part of the year teaching in San Francisco and across the USA. His work is mostly restoration and Design Binding, for which he has won many prizes in the Designer Bookbinders competition. He was elected a Fellow of DB in 2008 and is Patron of the New Zealand Association of Book Crafts. His bindings are in collections worldwide, including the British Library, the Grolier Club in New York and the San Francisco Public Library. In 2013 he won first prize, the Sir Paul Getty Award, in the International Bookbinding Competition. Dominic is a past President of the Society of Bookbinders. Dominic and Michael Burke are co-founders of Book Camp, an immersive residential bookbinding experience which aims to teach new generations of binders.

He has taught masterclasses in the USA, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, at the Centro del Bel Libro in Switzerland, the Czech Republic, and Canada.

This workshop is an introduction to the Japanese marbling technique of Suminagashi or “floating ink”.

Participants will learn paper and ink preparation, as well as brush application techniques used to create a series of uniquely marbled ink prints on masa and kozo papers.

Students will leave this one-day workshop with a collection of prints that they can use as bases for additional drawing or printing applications, or as standalone works of art. If they want to sign up for Solange's Contemporary Gilding class the following day, they can then gild their marbled designs.

Experimentation is encouraged and all are welcome!

Prerequisite: None

Tools/Materials to bring: All necessary materials will be supplied, but please bring additional papers you would like to experiment with as well as alternative mark-making tools such as branches, a straw, toothpick, fork, etc.

About the Instructor: Solange Roberdeau is a visual artist and freelance art educator and she works primarily in paper, sumi ink and with contemporary gilding in her own studio practice. Solange received a BFA in Printmaking from RISD in 2005 and an MFA in Studio Art from MICA in 2012. She teaches private classes as well as has taught workshops in contemporary gilding at institutions including locally at Kala Art Institute, Berkeley; nationally at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore and internationally at Cairo American College, Egypt. More information about Solange can be found on her website: www.solange-roberdeau.com.