In this introductory class, students will gain a basic understanding of the history, techniques, tools and styles of European marbling.

Students will get hands-on experience of all aspects of Western marbling techniques from paper priming and preparatory mixing of water medium and paints, to the creation of classical patterns. Specific attention will be given to learning how to obtain particular designs using a diverse array of rakes and combs. Students will have ample time for experimentation with guidance from the instructor and will leave with a sampling of papers they've marbled themselves.  

*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 or request mailed returns. 

Prerequisite:
None

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.

Developed in the Renaissance for studying perspective, the tunnel book is sometimes called a 'peephole book.' It is truly an adapted accordion with multiple panels bound on both sides, to be viewed from the front giving it a 3-D effect.

Students will collage the various layers out of their own postcards and photos to create a unique and personalized book. After attaching the pages to the accordion fold that holds them, the tunnel book will be glued into a simple cover for a more finished look.

Prerequisite:
None

Materials to Bring:
Several postcards (landscape orientation), old pictures, and/or magazines to cut up for images.

About the Instructor:
Bettina Pauly (she/her) lives in San Francisco as a book artist and works as 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.

Discover the elegance and functionality of the sewn boards binding, a modern structure popular today with bookbinders from various backgrounds.

In this hands-on workshop, participants will learn to sew text blocks onto integrated cover boards, creating a durable book that opens completely flat.

Prerequisite:
None

Tools/Materials to bring:
None. All tools and materials are 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. 

This workshop takes place on three consecutive Thursday evenings.

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.

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: 

- 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.

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. 

Enjoy a fun and relaxed learning environment, and walk away your very own hand-made screw-post album.

This book is designed to fit 4x6" prints and works great as a way to preserve and share memories as a photo album or scrapbook. You will learn all about the basics of this flexible structure that can be taken apart, re-ordered, added to, and put back together with just a couple of screws.

This is a great class for those new to bookmaking! No previous experience is required – anyone is encouraged to come, learn, enjoy, and walk away with something creative and useful.

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:
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).

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.

In this class students will find solutions for common problems that are often found in standard hardcover books, including:

- how to mend tears within the text block
- how to patch and sharpen the worn corners on cover boards
- how to tip in a loose page
- how to bridge a gap between signatures without removing the covers
- a simple technique to reback a text block
- how to repair worn and torn head caps

This class is an excellent chance to learn repair techniques that often plague our most frequently handled books. Students are welcome to bring their own books but there will also be a sample book available to each student, just to be sure the full range of repair needs are available.

The scholarship for this session has been awarded.

Prerequisite:
None

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

About the Instructor:
Michelle Sarjeant (she/her) is a bookbinder, author, and museum professional. She earned her Masters of Arts in Museum Studies Archival Care from John F. Kennedy University in Berkeley, California, and her undergraduate degree from Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon. She apprenticed in bookbinding with Sandra Good and now does repair and restoration work in her binding studio in Marin. 

She co-authored Modern San Rafael 1940-2000 with Jocelyn Moss, Librarian for the Marin History Museum, A History of the San Francisco State Belt with railroad historian Bill Kaufman and wrote San Rafael Through Time: As Illustrated & Described in 1884.

She is currently writing a book on the California Missions while rebinding books and is the Membership Chair for the Hand Bookbinders of California’s board.