Printmaking
Make an image, a piece of art, a rallying cry, or a book. Honor the history. Understand the creative concepts. Problem solve using the creative approach of the traditional or digital matrix. How will you leave your mark in the world of Printmaking?
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Printmaking
Making an Impression
The past and present collide in printmaking. Carve your message into wood one day and transfer a digital image to the silkscreen the next.
Discover etching, lithography, drawing, collage, silkscreen, letterpress, alternative non-silver photo-printmaking, installation, expanded digital media, and book arts. Learn about mass media, collaboration, and simulation.
You’ll exchange ideas and work collaboratively, participate in our Road Roller event, and showcase your work in department exhibitions.
Get ready to leave a personal expression, a lasting impression marked by the moment, mood, season, or era.
Students in printmaking classes have access to shared technology resources at Beals Studios. They transform and push the boundaries of the medium by adopting laser, 3D printing, and vector applications.
Classes + Course Requirements
In the Printmaking program, you will study traditional and contemporary print techniques.
1st year
Your journey starts in the Foundation program where you will explore new techniques and find passions that you never knew you had.
2nd year
- Relief & Monoprint
- Etching
- Drawing Applications for Printmaking
- Silk Screen
- Lithography
- Digital Applications for Printmakers
3rd year
- Dimensional Printmaking
- Junior Print Seminar
- Color in Printmaking
- Advanced Printmaking I
- Internships
4th year
- Advanced Printmaking II
- Professional Practice
- Printmaking Senior Thesis
Student Work
“The most important lessons I learned from the Art Institute are simple but really powerful, and I feel they drive everything in my creative life.”
Printmaking Faculty
KCAI faculty are artists, designers and scholars in their fields.
Lecturers
Luke Ball
Rachel Beer
Michelle Dreher
Adam Finkelston
Nick Phan
Heinrich Toh
East Building
In the Printmaking school, you’ll engage in a dynamic interchange involving studio narrative, collaboration, professional practice, and digital media possibilities and concepts. Minimal graphic experience is required, as is a strong sensibility in drawing and form.
The department will provide a shared student studio and gallery as well as most of the consumable materials for printing with studio fees.
- Intaglio, relief, and lithography presses
- Vandercook and clamshell letterpresses
- Plate exposing tables
- CNC routers
- Photopolymer developing unit
- 3D printer
- Desktop laser cutter
- Vinyl cutter
- Lithographic stones, with recent additions from Tamarind Institute
Career Paths + Career Outcomes
Graduates of the Printmaking program now work as professors, curators, business owners and leaders, educators, and artists across the country. Recent graduates also have become publishing and commercial printers as well as printmaking-based artists.
KCAI printmaking majors have worked or interned for Vahalla Studios, Zahner, Two Tone Press, Studios Inc., Hammer Press, Lawrence Lithography, Landfall Press, Porter Teleo, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, KC Ink and Paper Center for the Arts, design studios and fine art galleries.
KCAI's Professional Practice Center will help you prepare for your career.
Road Roller Day
Road Roller Day is an annual community event where students create large scale woodcut prints presses with an industrial steam roller.
