The Ruling Machine: Wood Engraving’s Secret Weapon (live online) Monday October 25, 1pm EDT

Wood Engraving course Saturday, (live online) October 30, 10:00 am – Noon PDT (1-3pm EDT)

Join Joanne Price for this interactive wood engraving introduction — from sketches to finished proof, all in two hours! Part discussion, part demonstration, this edition of Long-Distance Letterpress will examine how miniature imagery can make a big impact. Participants are encouraged to ask any questions and receive a print of the demonstration block by mail. It’s going to be BIG!
Register today!

I was thrilled to be a participant in Bernheim Arboretum & Research Forest’s Bug-a-Palooza events in September:
The Beauty of Bugs panel discussion lead by Bernheim’s Jenny Zeller with guest artists Joanne Price, Shannon Amidon, Angel Yoon Kyung Cho, and Bob Drake. My section starts right about the 33:40 mark.

On September 18th I led an in-person Insect Mural Collaborative Project – free for anyone attending Bug-a-Palooza at Bernheim. It was loads of fun!

Watch for When Children Ruled the World, by Sena Jeter Naslund (Ahab’s Wife), published by Larkspur Press. I worked long and hard to get 9 wood engraved illustrations (8 shown above) finished this summer (and into autumn). The book is printed using hand-set type and illustrations printed directly from the original woodblocks. It’s a gem of a child’s Christmas story at remarkably reasonable prices for such artisan work.

Thanks for reading!
Joanne Price

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Craa-ack! As relief print artists we don’t talk often about the mistakes, accidents, or failures that lead us to a final composition, color choice, or resolution. Or how those accidents sometimes have nothing to do with aesthetics, rather they were hard lessons about materials, physics, chemistry, patience, and/or common sense. So, I’m going to share my most embarrassing wood engraving mishaps with hopes that we can have a great discussion, learn from others’ mistakes, and swap disaster stories! – Joanne Price

Anyone is welcome to join the conversation (you don’t need to be a WEN member) — bring your disaster stories and your questions — this should be a cracker!

If you missed this exciting event, WATCH THE RECORDING: https://youtu.be/PCPx51ni1E4

Find out what disaster struck this reductive self portrait…

The post Wood Engraving Disasters – Virtual Presentation March 21, 2021 appeared first on Starpointe Studio.

Wood engraving creates fine details with bold woodcut characteristics, perfect for adding illustrations to letterpress cards, artist books, graphic novels, comic books, broadsides, or as stand-alone images. Learn to cut your own original drawings into miniature end-grain hardwood blocks and print them in a limited edition. Instruction will cover materials, creating and transferring images, tool sharpening, engraving and proofing. It is the perfect at-home print process – portable, meditative, no printing press is necessary and now with water soluble oil based inks, clean up is safe and easy at home.

Join me in a way that meets your level of comfort and needs in 2021: year 2 of a global pandemic:

In-Person Wood Engraving Intensive at John C. Campbell Folk School August 1 – 7, 2021

Join me for a week-long wood engraving workshop at the John C. Campbell Folk School August 1 through August 7, 2021.
We will use the Folk School’s printing presses and airy, spacious, and light-filled print classroom among the mountains of North Carolina.
This is a great course for beginners and intermediate skill levels. No previous experience is necessary, but it is helpful to previous drawing experience.

This will be an in-person course with precautions taken for Covid-19. Register by calling 1800-365-5724. OR visit the course listing online to register: https://classes.folkschool.org/class_details.aspx?pk=23617

Wood Engraving: Virtual Live and Recorded Instruction (8-hours total), 4 Wednesdays: June 2 through June 23, 2021.

Learn to cut a design into end-grain hardwood blocks through a combination of pre-recorded video demonstrations and live meetings via Zoom. Each participant will receive a class kit prior to the workshop. Instruction during 4 sessions covers material basics, creating and transferring images, tool sharpening, engraving, DIY printing, plus Pro tips and tricks.

This is a great course for beginners and intermediate skill levels. No previous experience is necessary, but it is helpful to have some previous drawing experience.
Perfect for those who have difficult schedules – all live class meetings will be recorded and available for viewing (streaming only) during the workshop and a couple weeks after until July 11, 2021. So you can watch any classes you missed at anytime!

Held via Zoom Wednesday nights 8pm–10pm ET: June 2, 9, 16 and 23

For specific supplies information and to register < click the underlined text

The post 2021 Summer Wood Engraving Workshops – In-person and virtual! appeared first on Starpointe Studio.

Wood engraving creates delicate, fine details with bold woodcut characteristics, perfect as stand-alone images, or as illustrations to letterpress holiday cards, artist’s books, or posters. Learn to cut your own original drawings into end-grain hardwood blocks and print them in a limited edition. Instruction will cover all parts of the process – materials, creating and transferring images, tool sharpening, engraving, and proofing. All levels welcome – some drawing experience helpful, but not required.

This class is designed for beginners and intermediate students of wood engraving — you’ll learn everything you need to know to cut your own original drawings into end-grain hardwood blocks and print them in a limited edition. Frogman’s Print Workshop is an institution — an organization that is known as a crossroads for print cross-pollination and print networking.

You’re not just learning a new print skill at Frogman’s – you’ll have a FULL in-person experience including special activities including a faculty lecture series, open portfolio viewing sessions, gallery crawls, and costumed bowling tournaments. Expect barbecues, pool parties, karaoke, fireworks, and free concerts. The workshop will culminate in a very special final banquet. More information regarding these activities will accompany your confirmation packet. Be prepared for anything!

Sign up today on Frogman’s website: http://frogmans.net/workshop-info/#price

The post Wood Engraving Class at Frogman’s Print Workshop July 5–10, 2021 appeared first on Starpointe Studio.

“For me, wood engraving’s intimate scale and slow pace provide a welcome respite from our cyber-fast world. The tactile nature and physicality of the relief printmaking process is satisfying. The strokes of my tools reveal the light, with the image slowly emerging from a darkened surface. It is charmingly mysterious and feeds my need for quiet concentration and hands-on creative productivity.” – Joanne Price

Wood Engraving (also known as Xylography) was developed in the late 18th century by Thomas Bewick (1753–1828), an artist and naturalist in Northern England. Bewick made his living doing commercial graphic design work, much like modern day designers do – making ads, business cards and logos combining image and text. Bewick engraved both cooper and wood, but excelled in the latter. From the 1830s – early 1900s, wood engravings dominated illustration in newspapers, magazines, and in books with demand for increased edition sizes. The demands of the Industrial Revolution created a medium that could be as detailed as copper engraving, able to withstand thousands of impressions and could be printed at the same time as the text. This reduced the printing time, labor, and cost of illustrating text.

Once photographic techniques gained a broader foothold in workshops, the creative engraver in commercial realms declined, but the relief medium as an art form truly blossomed in the early 1900s.

Come discover this medium, steeped in its history, utilized in a computer age, with me!

I’ll show you how I cut my original drawings into endgrain wood. I will demonstrate how I ink and print my wood blocks. I’ll also talk about the history, the tools and materials, as well as contemporary resources and examples. 

Price is nationally known for her wood engravings and is president of the Wood Engravers Network, an organization that fosters education and creates a resource for wood engravers. She has led wood engraving workshops throughout the country, has exhibited widely and teaches printmaking at the University of Kentucky.

The post Wood Engraving Demo at Kentucky Artisan Center at Berea August 11 appeared first on Starpointe Studio.