Workshops

This workshop is full - please call to put your name on the waiting list

This workshop is an introduction to working with Toyobo Printight plates, a photopolymer plate that is sensitive to photo-based imagery as well as direct drawing. In fact, the process is so versatile that it can accommodate nearly any type of imagery or visual approach you’re interested in bringing to it. The plates can yield prints with rich, luscious blacks, delicate tones, or lines that sensitively translate the texture of the drawing tool. Through the use of colored inks, multi-plate printing, and chine colle, the plates can also yield beautiful color prints.

The workshop is open to beginners as well as experienced printmakers. It can also be taken as a re-fresher course for those familiar with the process. 

If you have ever wanted to try lithography, or wanted to work in lithography again but haven’t access to stones, this workshop is perfect. It is appropriate for beginners as well as more advanced printmakers. We will be creating prints using the principles of lithography from images directly drawn or photocopied onto paper. Because the printing plates are simply pieces of recycled paper, this medium can be liberating for the artist who might be intimidated by using stones or metal plates and the chemicals involved. Uniquely, the paper “plates” made by this process can be easily cut into shapes, layered, or collaged and used in combination with other techniques, like monotype.

During this two-day workshop we will concentrate on learning the techniques during the first day, and explore the possibilities the next. There will be time to develop a small body or series of prints.

Traditional Japanese woodblock printing is an elegant, green and low-tech process that works beautifully for artists in home studios without a press. This workshop will introduce the method over a 4-week period with work at home required in between classes. Participants will learn how to transfer images to woodblocks, carve with Japanese tools, cut kento registration marks, and print by hand with a baren. All levels are welcome. 

This workshop is full.  Call to put your name on the waiting list.

Woodcut blocks provide an interesting surface and a versatile tool for monoprinting, particularly for learning to use Akua Inks. Using your woodcut blocks, either already cut, or newly cut for this workshop, we will push the limits of what can be done with Akua Inks. Examples of prints and demonstrations of image transfers, cutting, tool sharpening, registration, hand and press printing, paper handling, off-setting, viscosity rolling, interference printing, and chine colle serve as a menu of choices to expand your vocabulary for woodcut monoprint moves. My teaching style is very individualized, and my goal is to find the synergy between technique and each artist’s work.

This two-day workshop will focus on taking your introduction to photopolymer intaglio to the next level. We’ll work on refining your process to improve your resulting images; we’ll expand your approach to the Toyobo Printight Photopolymer Intaglio plates by integrating drawing tools and surface manipulation; and we’ll be layering plates by adding other photo-based and/or monotype processes. Whether you just learned how to process photopolymer plates and are eager to know more, or had your introduction several years ago and didn’t know where to go from there, this workshop is for you. Emphasis will be placed on individual attention. If you have not been introduced to photopolymer intaglio technique, but are interested in participating in this workshop, consider the beginner's workshop first or an Individualized Teaching session with Nancy to prepare you.

This workshop will cover the traditional method of creating a color intaglio print using multiple plates.  We’ll begin with a “key” plate, and make new plates for each color, working with line (hardground and softground) and tone (aquatints). Participants will learn about offsetting the image to create color plates, registration techniques, inking variations and printing multiple plates.  As an added bonus, we’ll be doing all of this using the non-toxic methods employed at Zea Mays Printmaking, including BIG ground, airbrush aquatint, and etching on copper in ferric chloride, making the whole process safer for the artists and less toxic for the environment.  You will be introduced to wiping skills and printing techniques as you develop and print your image through color and learn the ins and outs of color mixing, color modifying and color printing.

This workshop is designed for artists with some basic intaglio experience.

Viscosity monotype with water-based inks involves a loose, painterly, and often, thrilling exploration playing the edge between accident and control.  Create subtle, spontaneous, one-of-a kind prints on delicate papers, using modified inks. Thick and thin inks resist each other in ways that allow for beautiful color interactions in delightfully unpredictable ways.  Learn some of the tricks to making this fun way of exploring color work for you, as you add to your printing vocabulary.  

This workshop offers four action-packed days of creating richly colorful and subtly drawn prints, with an eye toward transforming them into beautiful books.  Students will explore spontaneous mark-making with both monotype and drypoint. These techniques are relatively fast, direct and open to invention.  Our emphasis will be on guided improvisation and learning how to develop layered imagery. We’ll use these prints to create several books that are simple but still very satisfying, including origami variations and the “drum leaf” structure. You will go home with a handful of wonderful books, a brain full of inspiring techniques and the technical know-how to continue exploring on your own.

Zea Mays Printmaking has been a leader in the "non-toxic" printmaking field for over a decade.  Taught by studio founder and director Liz Chalfin, with special guest demonstrations by Anita Hunt, this workshop will cover all we have learned and perfected in that time as it relates to etching on copper.  We'll cover hardground and softground using BIG (Baldwin's Ink Ground), the wonderful new ground from Wales, airbrush aquatints, sandpaper aquatints, coffee lift (a sugar lift substitute), spit bite with ferric and more.  Participants will learn each process through demonstration and experimentation.  We'll make use of the extensive archive of prints at Zea Mays, and the decade of technical research done by our interns.  

Participants will come away from the week-long workshop with the skills to create beautiful etchings in the safest possible ways along with a notebook of handouts, sample plates and prints and an understanding of how to set up a green, sustainable etching practice.

There are no rules or boundaries for contemporary monotypes: unique prints or printed drawings.  Hoping to encourage students to push the limits of this versatile medium, we will demonstrate the basics --mark making, tonality, color theory, transfer drawing, layering, stencils, masks-- as well as exploratory techniques. With the benefit of two instructors and large blocks of creative time, students will be able to tailor their individual goals for this workshop.  The concept of this course is to offer guided experiences and prompts to encourage new practices for all levels of experience. 

Learn the basics of water-based screen printing on paper and fabric with a few simple techniques.  Screen printing is a stencil process, and we will start by creating stencils on an open screen with waxed paper, tape, and found objects.  We will also use drawing fluid and screen filler to create painterly fixed imagery on screens to incorporate into our prints.  Working intuitively, we will use these techniques to create single prints or small editions. Jennifer wrote the book "Design Your Own Tees" and makes the process of screen printing easy and accessible.

Barry Moser will return to Zea Mays Printmaking to offer his annual workshop on relief engraving.  Relief Engraving is medium that ranks with mezzotint and fresco in its degree of difficulty, yet Moser presents the process clear and simple terms. We will discuss, explore, and learn the rudiments of how to draw for the engraving process, how to prepare a block, how to transfer images, how to hold and sharpen the tools, how to engrave an image, ink a block and finally how to pull a proof by hand. You’ll also have the opportunity to see Mr. Moser’s original prints and blocks.  We will be using Resingrave, a material that Moser has used exclusively since 1995.