Image Making on Letterpress #3: Alternative Processes
Course Code: 26SLP203I
This in-person workshop takes place on Saturday and Sunday, May 9th - 10th, from 11AM to 5PM ET.
- Saturday, May 9th, from 11AM to 5PM ET
- Sunday, May 10th, from 11AM to 5PM ET
Please Note: Registration for this workshop closes on April 25th, at 11:59pm Eastern Time.
About the Workshop:
This in-person workshop is taught by CBA instructor Elizabeth Castaldo.
The Vandercook presses are useful tools for a variety of projects and can be fun to use for many image based processes that can stand alone or be used in combination with hand set type. This workshop will cover a variety of hand made image making techniques such as pressure printing, collagraphs, and linocut.
Through these techniques, you will explore color, transparency, shape, and layering of imagery to create a series of prints. This class will focus on a playful and spontaneous approach to letterpress, but the resulting prints can be used as the beginnings of an artist’s book, a printed edition, or a series of unique prints, and next steps for these types of projects will be touched on as well. Anyone with an experimental spirit will love this class. Letterpress experience will be helpful but is not required.
Fun Fact: Image making on the letterpress is so special because while it is a tactile craft that’s made slowly, it can be reproduced infinitely and shared widely, while still maintaining that human-made feeling.
Required Materials:
- Pencil and eraser
- X-acto knife with blades or snap off utility knife
- Relief carving tools (optional)
- Textured materials for making collagraphs – such as lace, dried or artificial leaves, yarn or string
- Any special papers you may want to print on
All other materials will be provided by Center for Book Arts at no additional cost.
About the Instructor
Elizabeth Castaldo is a New York based artist, printmaker, and bookbinder. Working with collage, drawing, and printmaking she creates multi-layered and visually abundant works on paper and artist’s books that explore nature, the divine feminine and interconnectivity. She was a 2024 art-in-ed workspace resident at Women’s Studio Workshop and has completed residencies at Proyecto ‘Ace in Buenos Aires Argentina, Arquetopia in Oaxaca Mexico, the Center for Book Arts, NYC and Printmaker’s Open Forum, Oxford PA. In 2023, her work was included in an illustrated edition of The Awakening by Kate Chopin published by Kasini House and Kolaj. Her work has been exhibited internationally including with Proyecto ‘Ace, Saint-Paul de Mausole at Saint-Rémy, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Empty Set Gallery, Zuckerman Museum of Art, Center for Book Arts, Saint Joseph’s College, and Landing Contemporary. She teaches printmaking and book arts at Parsons School of Design and the Center for Book Arts. Castaldo received her MFA from SCAD Atlanta where she was a Dean’s Fellow in Printmaking and her BFA from the School of Visual Arts. Her work is held in many private and institutional collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Public Library, SCAD, The University of Alberta, Carnegie Mellon University, Yale University and others.
All images courtesy of the instructor.