Learn the basics of carving and printing designs from linoleum blocks.

Students will learn how to transfer and carve a simple design into a 5 x 7" linoleum block, then use the Vandercook cylinder press to print their single-color block on either fold-over cards or on quality printmaking paper.

This workshop is open to beginners, as well as students with some letterpress experience looking for a new way to add imagery to their work.

Prerequisite:
None

Materials to Bring:
Bring ideas for a simple 5x7" design; ideally at least two sketches so the instructor can help choose which will work best.

About the Instructor:
Patricia Wakida (she/her) is a bibliophile, artist and writer with a background in trade publishing. Her relations to books are kept tangible and toothsome by running wasabi press, making illustrated letterpress books, broadsides, posters and cards on a Chandler and Price tabletop platen press and a small etching press. Patricia’s book arts education began with an apprenticeship in Japanese papermaking in Mino, Gifu- prefecture, Japan in 1996, followed by an apprenticeship at the Arts and Crafts Press under linoleum block artist and letterpress printer Yoshiko Yamamoto, in Berkeley, California. She has also taught linoblock carving and letterpress workshops as a teaching assistant in the book arts program at Mills College, the San Francisco Center for the Book, and ASUC Art Studio. 

Working from pre-cut materials, students will learn three simple enclosures: Folded Paper Portfolio, Phased Box, & Slipcase. Students will be guided through the various design, construction, applications, pros, cons, and special options for each structure.  

Critical skills covered include:

Scaling from object to enclosure

Box Construction and Covering

Scoring and Folding Paper

Options for combining and augmenting these basic structures 

Prerequisite:
None

Tools/Materials to Bring:
None. Students are welcome to bring any of their own favorite bookbinding tools.

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, and now teaches SFCBs Box Making Core 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.

Use collage techniques to create a book with pop-up elements and a hard cover that nestles nicely in an upcycled tin.

Making a little accordion book that fits into a little tin is so satisfying. At first glance it just looks like an adorable decorated box, but on opening a marvelous handmade pop-up book is revealed.

In this class we will be using collage elements such as recycled maps, postcards, and other ephemera to create an accordion book with pop-up elements enclosed in a hard cover front and back. This will fit neatly into an embellished tin (breath mint tin size) that can display the book’s title or associated imagery. 

Prerequisite:
None

Materials to bring:
Optional: ephemera and other materials to collage with.

About the Instructor:
Stephanie Jucker (she/her) is an exhibiting artist who uses mixed media and printing techniques in her paintings, books, and art installations. Originally from London where she earned her BFA, Stephanie has an MFA from Syracuse in painting, printmaking, and ceramics. With 25 years of teaching experience, she currently runs art classes at College of Marin, Kala, and Art Works Downtown in San Rafael.

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 3: Limp Paper Binding

In centuries past, books were sometimes sewn onto cords and then laced into soft covers before being bound for a specific collection or library. Often covered with calfskin, these limp vellum bindings became an important structure all their own. In this class students will bind a book using these bindings as a model but employing thick paper as the folded and laced wrapper. Students will learn to use a sewing frame and the skill of sewing headbands.

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 and 2

Materials to Bring:
None, all tools and materials are provided.

About the Instructor:
Erika Lindensmith (she/her) has been a book conservator for almost 30 years. She trained in library and archives conservation at the University of Texas and worked at institutions in Wales, Scotland and New York before settling in California. Her interests are historical book structures and repair. She is excited to share her love of making books.

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.

This class focuses on precise registration. Together we will print two projects in two ink colors each, one from handset type and printer’s cuts, the other from photopolymer plates. We will concentrate on the strategic preparation of the forms and the press set-up to achieve any multiple registration job perfectly.

The class will use both Vandercook and platen presses; students who are only experienced on the Vandercook presses are welcome. Ample time will be given to questions and show and tell from both the students and the instructors.

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):
Students must have completed the Cylinder Core certificate program, or have equivalent printing experience. Please email us with your qualifications if you are new to SFCB.

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

About the Instructors:
Alan Hillesheim (he/him) and Lisa Rappoport (she/her) will team-teach this new series of workshops for intermediate printers.

Pochoir is a method of stenciling: applying pigments with a flat round brush through cut-out areas of a thin material like mylar, acetate, Tyvek or cardstock. 

Students will learn the basics of stencil creation and will work on images made up of simple shapes to practice their technique. Throughout the day, different materials will be employed to make stencils; different brushes and their effects will be examined; and various ‘dry pigments’ and papers will be investigated as students expand their pochoir skills. The instructor will also lead a discussion on how students can incorporate pochoir into their own artwork, including books, prints, cards, and more.

Students will also make a simple folder at the end of class for the samples that were made.

Prerequisite:
None 

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

About the Instructor:
Bettina Pauly (she/her) lives in San Francisco and works as both a book artist and a letterpress printer with Kim Vanderheiden at Painted Tongue Studios, Oakland, California. She loves books and boxes both as physical objects and as containers of meaning. She is interested in a variety of folded, sewn and woven structures in which she can incorporate her printing.

Small-format tabletop presses are limited in what they can print, but offer a ton of possibilities for printers with bite-size projects without taking up much space. Here's your chance to spend a few hours learning how these diminutive little guys work and to print your own vintage-inspired postcards.

The instructor will supply postcard blanks pre-printed with a charming postcard back. Students will delve into SFCB's drawers of type and cuts to design their own simple image to print on the front. Students will come away from class with an introductory understanding of letterpress and relief printing, small format printing and its limits, and a small stack of their own postcards (plus others, if classmates wish to share)!

An excellent class for those curious about letterpress in general, and tabletop presses in particular. 

Prerequisite:
None.

Materials to bring:
None. All tools and materials will be provided.

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 co-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.