Printmaking Class: Beginning Relief

Memory In Relief and Monotype: Record memory through objects in this six-week course of relief and monotype printing. Students will create monotypes and relief prints that focus on objects of memory. Through monotypes, we will record textures, plants and fabric, to make unique prints that are colorful and textural. Through the traditional method of relief printing, students will make identical prints with bold lines, high contrast and velvety color fields.

We will use the two large presses to print our monotype plates and relief blocks. Students will develop skills of preparing paper and creating templates for identical prints, which will serve students in all methods of printmaking beyond this course. We will look at historical and contemporary artists’ work in these methods.

A note about accessibility at Waterfall: Our print studio is located on the third floor, with staircase access only at this time. We are proud to be a green print studio, free of toxic chemicals. As with all printmaking classes at Waterfall Arts, drawing is a helpful but not necessary skill: we share methods for tracing and transferring images to plates. All students, regardless of prior experience, welcome! We are happy to tailor instruction to include additional techniques for students wanting to advance their existing skills.

About the instructor: Chip Barchilon is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in the unceded territory of the Wabanaki Confederacy. Barchilon’s work responds to past and present stories of place and pushes against the structures of power embedded within these histories. Drawing from fairy tales, rhizomatic theory and deep ecology, their practice in bioplastic sculpture and works on paper creates atmospheres of eerie beauty that delight in ambiguity and multiplicity.