Daniela Lorenzi Oficinas de creatividade, 2012

Fine art printmaking workshops. Experimental techniques. Regular courses, SESC Pompeia, São Paulo, SP, Brazil.

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From tradition to numerically controlled machinery

The course, structured as a practical workshop and aimed at producing individual projects, accompanied some twenty participants for over two months through a process of experimentation.

Through theory sessions and meetings with professionals in the field, a range of artistic practices linked to fine art printing were explored.

These ranged from traditional techniques such as woodcut and intaglio printing, to modern industrial screen printing and the latest digital printing, to artists' books, small-scale publishing and the growing interest in creative letterpress.

Experimental printmaking combines traditional practices with formal printing techniques and unconventional materials, where the printing process itself becomes a creative path reflecting technological change and artistic interests.

Meeting and workshop with Kaori Miyayama. Fine art printing between anthropological research and artistic practice

The first meeting/workshop featured Kaori Miyayama, a Japanese-born artist who lives between Milan, Italy, and Tokyo, her home city.

MA "defines an entity between", the artist has written, referring to the Eastern philosophy that explores the concept of the Boundary; "a time between two events, a space between things, a pause between sounds, the relationship between two people or even between two different moments in the attitude of the same subject."

The artist, who trained in Anthropology and graduated from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, shared her research with the participants in terms of both its poetic content and its technique, entering into a dialogue with them that compared cultural differences. In Brazil for several engagements, Kaori accepted the invitation to present the Gumprint planographic printing process together with Daniela and to show some of her artists' books.

Meeting and workshop with Cristian Boffelli. Woodcut, screen printing and large formats

In the second meeting/workshop the participants engaged with a completely different approach.

Rigorous and at the same time primordial in his mark-making and in his search for form, a form always in continual mutation and evolution, Cristian Boffelli is an Italian artist who engraves, draws or paints figures (neither men nor animals, men or animals, animal men at the same time) that represent both the real and the inner world.

Woodcut, intaglio and screen printing, in both small and large formats, are his most direct means of expression, since they allow no second thoughts.

With an introductory video of a large-format screen-printing project and printed examples, he worked with the participants, demonstrating every stage of the process directly: setting up the drawing/composition, film, coating the screen with emulsion, and printing.

Meeting and letterpress workshop with Oficina Tipográfica São Paulo

Off-site meetings. The group was welcomed into the workshops of Oficina Tipográfica São Paulo, where it took part in a guided tour and a practical workshop.

The participants produced several posters, composing with wood type and inking the formes locked up on the letterpress machines directly.

Marcos Mello and Claudio Rocha also shared their graphic research, showing examples of creative letterpress printing and the magazine Tupigrafia, founded by Rocha himself in 2000.

Meeting and workshops with Renato Cury. Epson Fine Art printers with pigment inks. Hahnemühle 100% cotton papers

Renato Cury of the ClaroEscuro studio is the professional Daniela invited to share a process of experimentation between digital and traditional printing.

The participants freely explored both processes, printing plates on the press onto sample sets of Hahnemühle papers in the SESC workshops and testing the Epson printers in Renato's studio, investigating possible interactions.

Since the early 2000s Renato has worked in Fine Art Giclée printing, the particular type of digital printing that uses professional Epson printers with pigment inks and Hahnemühle 100% cotton papers.

Only a few years earlier the two manufacturers had begun research into paper coatings and ink composition, with the aim of obtaining prints with a depth of black similar to analogue black-and-white photographic printing. The first Hahnemühle papers prepared to receive digital printing were put on the market in the late 1990s.

The distinctive feature of this type of printing on 100% cotton papers is that the ink does not dissolve when immersed in water. It is therefore possible to devise images conceived in several layers, combining hand-press printing from plates with digital printing, even reversing the order of progression.

SESC Pompeia, Lina Bo Bardi's iconic architecture, and the SESCs as a social service in Brazil

The Oficinas de Criatividade do Sesc Pompeia are free (or low-cost) courses and workshops for trying out various artistic and manual techniques such as ceramics, painting, printmaking, sewing, woodworking, photography and textiles, offering hands-on learning, play and the development of creative skills at various levels, from beginners to the more experienced, often during the holidays or at specific times of year.

The SESCs (Serviço Social do Comércio) in Brazil are private non-profit institutions that provide high-quality social, cultural, health, sports and leisure services, mainly to workers in the retail sector and to the general public. They promote well-being, culture and social development through accessible facilities such as theatres, swimming pools and courses, and organise cultural and social events, including the well-known SESC Film Festival. Funded by businesses in the Fecomércio system, the SESCs are a pillar of Brazilian welfare, fostering access to essential services and opportunities for personal and community development.

They operate through units throughout Brazil, some of which have become famous architectural and cultural centres, such as SESC Pompéia in São Paulo, designed by Lina Bo Bardi.

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First meetings. Tools and machinery available.

Drypoint plate. Types of printing and differences. Tarlatan wiping with a light plate tone.

Collagraph. Differences in the result depending on the use, the type of support and the additional materials.

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Collagraph. Printed results.

Printing on the press. Mixed techniques.

Printing metal plates worked as collagraphs. Application of aluminium film.

The artist's book. Structure and content. Technical and formal choices.

The Japanese theory of MA and the idea of the boundary.

Lithography on stone and alternative supports. The Gumprint technique.

Meeting with Cristian Boffelli. Screen printing and large formats. Introduction.

The mask and the face. Dialogue with the artist.

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External meetings. Creative letterpress. Meeting with Claudio Rocha (in the photo showing archive sheets) and Marcos Mello at the premises of Oficina Tipográfica São Paulo.