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. 

The exercises will change each month, so you may wish to sign up for multiple sessions. 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 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. 

This visually intricate structure of opposing flaps or “flags” creates a one-of-a-kind book that showcases contrasting or cohering images and text.

This stunning structure was created by Hedi Kyle and has infinite possibilities. The book “claps” open, and pages can be read individually or all at once when the accordion spine is stretched to its full panoramic landscape. The Flag Book workshop will make this seemingly complex form easy to learn for any level of book arts practitioner.

Prerequisite:
None

Tools/Materials to bring:
Personal ephemera (images and/or text) to be included in the book.

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.

We will be learning the art of gilding (applying gold) and decorative painting by copying medieval samples. These finely-detailed medieval illuminations allow us to practice multiple skills: raised gilding, flat gilding, color washes, highlighting, outlining, and more.

We will be using modern gilding size (glue), paints, and paper. Modern materials are not just time saving and easier to source but also less dangerous, which enables you to easily transfer these medieval skills to your modern artwork. Medieval materials and differences will be discussed for those who want to delve deeper into history.

Prerequisite:
None

Materials to Bring:
None

About the Instructor:
Katie Leavens is a freelance illustrator & calligrapher here in San Francisco with a degree in Design. Her art explores the relationships between tradition & modernism through techniques, mediums, & subject matters. She has been studying calligraphy since 2015 and teaching since 2020. Katie is a member of IAMPETH and on the Friends of Calligraphy council. In 2025, Katie received the Certificate of Proficiency from IAMPETH in Illumination & Borders.

Reduction printing is a multi-layered printing process that uses a single block to create a multi-colored image. The process involves carving and printing, removing portions of the block after each layer is printed, usually working from lightest to darkest colors.

Students will carve their own small, two color design and learn the basic principles of reduction carving: what to carve and when. They will finish the class with a small edition of their two color design and usable stamp (single color design) to take home.

Prerequisite:
None

Materials to Bring:
Students should bring a few different ideas or sketches for a simple image measuring 2 3/4” x 3 3/4” that could be separated and printed in two colors. The instructor will help you decide what will work best in class.

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.