This class will cover the basics of papermaking, including sheet forming, couching, and drying. Students will learn to use a household blender to make pulp from paper scraps and then form new sheets using a traditional mold and deckle. The class will also experiment with “botanical inclusions” (flower petals and other organic materials) to add color and texture to the paper. Students will complete the class with a stack of newly couched paper and the knowledge required to make their own paper at home.

Prerequisite:
None

Materials to Bring:
All tools and materials will be provided

About the Instructor:
As a composer and visual artist, Gino Robair (he/him) uses handmade paper and letterpress printing to create unique musical scores. He has an MA and MFA from Mills College and is currently working towards a PhD in Performance Studies at the University of California, Davis, developing performative models for improvised papermaking.

In this informal monthly session, we'll engage in unconventional exercises to spark fresh approaches to drawing.

If you're hungry for a challenge, or want to try new techniques, or if you simply want to draw in the company of others, join us on the third Thursday of the month. 

Please note, the featured photo is student work from a previous session; the exercises will change each month and it may not represent the techniques used in class.

Since each session is different, you may wish to sign up for multiple dates. No drop-ins, please.

Prerequisite:
None

Materials to Bring:
Bring your preferred drawing materials and an open mind. Paper and basic tools will be provided.

About the Instructor:
Tim Svenonius (he/him) is a mixed-media artist whose work explores the intersections of history, memory and myth. A voracious reader and an avid researcher, his work is shaped by deep investigations into arcane knowledge and lore. He has worked for two decades in the museum field, as a designer, writer, and producer of digital media. In 2015 he self-published a monograph, A Book of Lost Latitudes, which explores the role of the whale in mythology and literature, through evocative drawings and found texts.

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(s):
None

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

About the Instructor:
Madison Halaby Gordon (she/they) is a bookbinder and conservator-in-training living in Oakland, CA, currently working at Zukor Art Conservation and the Walt Disney Family Museum. She is fascinated by paper, and loves making and repairing practical, fun, accessible, and well-made structures for the use and enjoyment of everyday people. Madison is also trained in letterpress printing and has worked previously with the Key Printing & Binding (Oakland, CA) and Small Editions (Brooklyn, NY).

Bookbinding Core Certificate Program

The San Francisco Center for the Book celebrates the craft and art of bookbinding. Our Bookbinding Core Certificate Program introduces students to four different binding models, leading them through the history and evolution of bookmaking.  It provides students a comprehensive foundation to delve into the practice of binding and qualifies them to rent studio time in our bindery. Core classes must be taken in order, 1 through 4.

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

Bookbinding Core 2: Flat-Back Case Binding

In this second Core Bookbinding class, students will create what most of us refer to as a hardbound book. In bookbinding terms, it is known as a case binding; where a sewn textblock is glued into a separate structure known as a case. Students will learn more about the mechanics of books as they build on skills from Core 1 and expand both their vocabulary and capabilities in and around the bindery.

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 1

Materials to Bring:
All tools and materials will be provided. Students are also welcome to bring any leftover pastepapers from Core 1 that they might want to use on their book.

About the Instructor:
Jane Knoll (they/them) was the San Francisco Center for the Book's 2025 Type Devil. After an undergraduate in writing and printmaking from Bennington College and a diploma in bookbinding from North Bennet Street School, Jane was awarded two fellowships at the Boston Athenæum's conservation lab and worked as Assistant Book Conservator at the Northeast Document Conservation Center. Currently preparing for a master's in book conservation, Jane studies the archaeology of the book, with special interests in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century structures, folk repairs, and personalized bindings, and has two publications on the American scaleboard binding.

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.

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.

In this class you’ll create two image layers by hand, and each student will print a 2-color poster in an edition of 20. Come ready to turn sketches or drawings into your poster. If you would prefer not to draw, consider bringing clip art, traced designs, stamps, or collage elements to make your design.

This workshop focuses on the analog approach to printing with a Risograph. The Introduction to Digital Risograph Printing workshop focuses on preparing files and printing via digital transmission. 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

Materials to bring:

• Sketches, drawings, photographs, or collage imagery no larger than 10” x 16” on paper or clear acetate (spot imagery smaller than 10” x 16” will work as well).
• Pens: black ink, all kinds of tips/types (sharpies, markers, brush pens, felt tip, different sized nibs, etc.) Faber Castell's PITT pens or Micron's are examples where you have different sized nibs. You can also bring pencils (especially softer/darker ones if you want more hand-drawn imagery). Essentially anything to make a drawn mark with! Colored markers in yellows and pinks won't work well, though.
• Photos can be fun. Make sure they aren't precious in case you want to cut them up. Grayscale with a wide value range work the best, rather than color photos. You can print out or photocopy what you want to play with and bring that, rather than the original.
• Collage materials: papers with patterns, tapes like washi, templates or stencils for making shapes, black or dark construction paper for cutting out shapes.
• Stamps/stamp pad and letter/number stickers are great if you want to work with text.
• Scissors or X-acto knife; glue stick or clear tape; eraser.
• Please print out any digital imagery before class, no larger than 11" x 17", with a 1/2" border all around.

About the Instructor:
Nathalie Roland (she/her) is a San Francisco-based printmaker and painter who has been creating woodcut prints since 1991. Working from her Sunset district garage studio known as Sunset Paperworks, she specializes in woodcut reduction prints using pine or mulberry wood blocks that transform through multiple stages of carving and printing. She has studied relief printing under Zarina Hashmi, screen printing at Ape Do Good, worked as a bookbinder at the Arion Press and was formerly the in-house Riso printer for Yellow Owl workshop. 

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:
Jane Knoll (they/them) was the San Francisco Center for the Book's 2025 Type Devil. After an undergraduate in writing and printmaking from Bennington College and a diploma in bookbinding from North Bennet Street School, Jane was awarded two fellowships at the Boston Athenæum's conservation lab and worked as Assistant Book Conservator at the Northeast Document Conservation Center. Currently preparing for a master's in book conservation, Jane studies the archaeology of the book, with special interests in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century structures, folk repairs, and personalized bindings, and has two publications on the American scaleboard binding.

Bookbinding Core Certificate Program

The San Francisco Center for the Book celebrates the craft and art of bookbinding. Our Bookbinding Core Certificate Program introduces students to four different binding models, leading them through the history and evolution of bookmaking.  It provides students a comprehensive foundation to delve into the practice of binding and qualifies them to rent studio time in our bindery. Core classes must be taken in order, 1 through 4.

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

Bookbinding Core 2: Flat-Back Case Binding

In this second Core Bookbinding class, students will create what most of us refer to as a hardbound book. In bookbinding terms, it is known as a case binding; where a sewn textblock is glued into a separate structure known as a case. Students will learn more about the mechanics of books as they build on skills from Core 1 and expand both their vocabulary and capabilities in and around the bindery.

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 1

Materials to Bring:
All tools and materials will be provided. Students are also welcome to bring any leftover pastepapers from Core 1 that they might want to use on their book.

About the Instructor:
Madison Halaby Gordon (she/they) is a bookbinder and conservator-in-training living in Oakland, CA, currently working at Zukor Art Conservation and the Walt Disney Family Museum. She is fascinated by paper, and loves making and repairing practical, fun, accessible, and well-made structures for the use and enjoyment of everyday people. Madison is also trained in letterpress printing and has worked previously with the Key Printing & Binding (Oakland, CA) and Small Editions (Brooklyn, NY).