Printmaking
The printmaking curriculum at the Kansas City Art Institute is based on student choice and strong educational balance between learning skills and concepts and development of the students' individual studio work.
A knowledge of large format printing, digital documentation and proficiencies in etching, relief printing, lithography, silkscreen and transfer methods are seen as essential outcomes of the program.
Students are encouraged to think in personal creative terms and in terms for commercial application of his/her skills and studio work. Recent print graduates have succeeded in a wide variety of areas from graduate school, elementary school teachers, starting print studios, professional positions and as studio artists.
The curriculum calls for 15 to 18 credit hours per semester, including required liberal arts courses, professional practice, studio electives and core printmaking courses. Drawing course work is required in the spring semester of the sophomore and junior years.
View work by students, faculty and alumni.
Printmaking Electives
Printmaking Large-Scale Woodblock
This course will focus on hand carving and hand printing large-scale woodcuts. Basic one-color printing will be introduced as will a variety of mark-making tools. From there the class will explore editioned and unique color prints made from multiple blocks as well as jigsaw woodcuts. The focus on hand printing will ensure students can explore and continue working in this medium even when they lack direct access to presses.
Poetic Books
Taught concurrently with LITR374. In this interdisciplinary course, students will attend to all aspects of creating books: not writing alone, as if the physical book happened automatically, or bookmaking alone, as if the text of the book took care of itself. We will study poetry and poetry writing as a creative writing class would and bookmaking as a book arts class would, but with an ongoing dialogue between the two components, and with a student’s own book as the shared goal integrating the disciplines.
Digital Atelier
Open to students from all departments, this elective develops skills including advanced image creation and editing, multimedia project development and introductory Web design for visual artists utilizing visually oriented software. The instructor will customize assignments according to each student’s imagery and concepts, technical interests and professional aspirations. A basic knowledge of Adobe Photoshop will be helpful but is not required. An enthusiasm for tapping the infinite ways digital technology can help the visual artist develop everything from preparatory sketches for paintings to promotional or conceptual Web sites is strongly encouraged.
Non-Toxic Printmaking
Students in all departments can benefit from exploring the translation of their ideas and images to an intermediary matrix. The process of transferring an image from one surface to another will open artists up to new means of generating ideas and imagery. Emphasis will be placed on alternative printmaking technologies that reduce the toxins to which the artist is exposed and increase the likelihood that the artist will be able to continue working in these media without direct access to extensive equipment. Drypoint etchings, water-based monotype and block printing will form the core of the course, and explorations will follow from there and may include book structures.
Lithography
Students new to lithography will begin drawing on aluminum plates to create black and white prints and then move to working on limestone. Both media allow linear as well as painterly marks. Demonstrations will include color lithography and multiple plate printing. Students will edition prints as well as create mono-prints, utilizing at least one lithographic matrix. Experimentation and combination with other media will be encouraged.
Millennium Voice Project: Community Art
Every individual’s story is part of the fabric that makes up our community. Seldom do young people have the opportunity to become the society’s storytellers, the historians of their past and the forecasters of the future. Millennium Voice Project, MVP, is a community arts course that allows students to work with young people in the inner city. Participants will work with high school students, helping them to collect, archive and communicate their life journeys. The images and archives produced will become the source material for community graphic murals, possible Web site design and billboard imagery.
