See sample pages from this book at Wink.
Print Workshop: Hand-Printing Techniques and Truly Original Projects
by Christine Schmidt
Potter Craft
2010, 176 pages, 7.5 x 9 x 0.7 inches (softcover)
A year after moving, I am still finding miscellaneous books tucked into previously unpacked boxes. Luckily, that means I get to rediscover favorites like Christine Schmidt's Print Workshop: Hand-printing Techniques and Truly Original Projects. With step-by-step instructions, project templates, and illustrated project and resource guides, this book serves as both an exhaustive guide for the DIY-er just starting out in printmaking, as well as a jumping-off point for artists who need a nudge toward new ideas.
Schmidt, the creative force behind San Francisco's Yellow Owl Workshop, organizes the book into several helpful and easy-to-navigate sections. She opens with a brief but thorough introduction to the processes of printmaking, followed by a comprehensive guide, complete with photos and drawings, to setting up a home studio and choosing materials. These initial images of materials-for-making reappear in the technique chapters, plucked from the original grid shots to become part of each project, transformed into visual verbs for the printing process.
As someone who has no formal training in printmaking, I was especially interested in the breadth of the form. The "Relief Printing" chapter, for example, hosts a wax seal project, and "Image Transfer Printing" includes refreshingly simple pin-prick stationary. This book is full of fantastic gift ideas (I'll be making the sweet-potato-printed picnic set for a wedding present, and my holiday preserves are about to get gussied-up with water-slide decal jars), and because printing is made for multiples, I plan to make a whole cache of go-to homemade presents to pull from throughout the year.
– Marykate Smith Despres
