Workshops

Integrating Mind, Body, and Art, a Color Woodblock Printmaking Retreat

June 5 - 7, 2026, at the Rowe Center, Rowe, MA.

Alas, this class has been canceled.  Maybe next year.

Email Matt of your interest.

Below is 2025 Workshop Leaders and Description.

Describe a bit more?
During this retreat we'll do carved and printed using the Japanese technique (the hanga method). Focus was on the communicative potential of making art as a group. To help that to work, we pursued activities during the weekend to build meaning around our group project.
We pursued a goal: the completion of a batch of prints that participants divvied up and took home.

The Japanese hanga method?

Hanga is printing by hand with wood and water. It was the printing method used to make the ukiyo-e and shin hanga prints of Japan. In the 18th and 19th centuries it was done collaboratively by a team. Materials are non-toxic (just rice paste, water, and pigments), printing is with brushes and a hand-held baren instead of a press.

Class description for workshops I used to teach:
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Introduction to Japanese Color Woodblock Printmaking
The Japanese developed a woodblock printing method using water as a medium, brushes to apply colors to the blocks, and use of a hand-held baren instead of a press to transfer colors from multiple carved blocks to printing papers. This is a low carbon-footprint, non-toxic printing method.

Workshops are organized to offer a comprehensive introduction to the tools, techniques, and materials    of this printing method. In each class everyone completes a multi-color print and engages with aspects of design, carving, and printing. The workshop includes sharings of tricks and techniques adaptable  to other art-making approaches (watercolor painting, western-style printmaking). All experience levels are welcome.  

Each 3-day workshop is taught in six three-hour sessions.  To find out more, and to see prints made by past class participants, visit the Studio, or send me a note.

On the work by students page you can see prints and photos from past workshops and see images of prints made in classes. Below are links to web-sites of some who have gone on to make hanga prints of their own after taking the class. 

Annie Bissett
Mary Graham
Richard Sabin
Sandy Wadlington
Jennifer Worsley

Matt