Saturday-Sunday, March 8-9, 10 AM-5 PM

with Carol Wax

Mezzotint engraving is a direct, tonal drypoint technique for creating luminous prints with rich tones and dramatic lighting effects, without the use of acid or solvents. It’s the equivalent of blackening a sheet of paper with charcoal and drawing the image with an eraser. In mezzotint, a tool called a “rocker,” creates a textured ground on a copper plate and images are drawn with scrapers, burnishers, and various polishing materials.

In this two-day workshop, participants are guided through basic grounding, image-making, and printing techniques to produce a finished black-and-white mezzotint engraving. Instruction covers handling and care of tools, easy ways to make corrections, use of mezzotint with other mediums, alternative grounding methods, and printing tricks, making this class useful to artists with diverse interests and experience. Mezzotint rockers are supplied.

This class is open to beginners with no prior printmaking experience, and to experienced printmakers who want a chance to work with the artist who literally wrote the book on mezzotint!

About the Instructor

Carol Wax, author of the book The Mezzotint: History and Technique (Abrams, 1990, 1996, 2023), works in a wide range of mediums but is best known for her mezzotint engravings. Her prints are in numerous museum collections and have been honored by: two New York Foundation for the Arts Artist’s Fellowships; The American Academy of Arts and Letters Louise Nevelson Award for Printmaking; an Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation Individual Support Grant; and residencies at The MacDowell Colony and Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation’s Space Program. In addition to numerous visiting artist workshops, she has taught at The Rhode Island School of Design, SUNY New Paltz, Montclair State University, and Bard College.

This workshop is currently full. Fill out the form below to be placed on the waiting list.