Jason Clark

Printmaker Jason Clark will be offering a full day pochoir workshop which will introduce basic concepts and exploration involving pochoir or stencil monotype techniques. Participants will have the opportunity to combine their personal “image vocabulary” with this printmaking process to realize their creative and conceptual goals and express their ideas. The goal is for participants to recognize the creative possibilities unique to this printmaking process and use it to realize their aesthetic goals, creating prints that are experimental and imaginative. Participants are encouraged to bring loose leaf sketches or sketch books filled with their own imagery as reference and inspiration.

The name Pochoir derives from the French word for “stencil” and refers effectively to a stencil-based process of printmaking that was used by artists and graphic designers to either create prints or apply additional color to existing prints. Although the technique has been dated back to 500 C.E., it is primarily known for its popularity during the late 19th, early 20th century, which saw the development of the Art Nouveau and Art Deco movements. The technique was honed by great masters of this time, most notably by Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, and Henri Matisse. Pochoir involves the designing and creating of stencils that are to be cut with a blade, and if desired, layered on top of each other to create compositions that vary in complexity.

Originally stencils were cut from sheets of aluminum, zinc, or copper, however with time printmakers moved towards plastic as their material of choice. Once cut, the stencils are inked and composed onto a sheet of plexiglass. Printmaking paper is then placed on top and then run through the press to offset the ink onto the paper. Removing the stencil then reveals the desired print motif, and the process can be repeated to yield more complex compositions, or perhaps a wider selection of color.