Provincetown White Line Printmaking

• This workshop is designed for adults
• Material included

In 1915 a group of 6 women printmakers decided to spend their winter in the resort town of Provincetown, Massachusetts to develop a new printmaking technique. These women were all Japanese Wood cut Printers; a technique that requires separate plates for each color in the composition. These artists wanted to invent something that looked similar but used one plate versus many. White line printmaking emerged from this collaboration.

The method utilizes a soft wood block as the printing plate. The image is transferred to the wood then each line is cut with a craft knife, making V-lines that appear as white lines in the finished product. The paper is tacked to the top of the wood plate with thumb tacks to create a perfect registration, making sure the paper falls in the exact same place each time.

The pigment is watercolor paint which is applied directly onto the wood plate in one small area at a time. The paper is then folded over the plate and burnished with a spoon to transfer all the pigment. This process is repeated until the print is complete. Each plate can be reused to create more images.

Denise's biography

Denise Cormier Mahoney is an experienced mid-career visual artist who has exhibited her work across the United States and Canada. Raised in the French Acadian village of Memramcook, New Brunswick, Denise’s mixed media paintings are inspired by nature and are narratives loosely based on her own stories, beliefs and experiences.

Denise earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting and printmaking in 1983 at the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She then obtained a Masters in Art Education in 2011 at Texas Tech University to share her passion for art with her students. She currently works as an artist/educator.

She received an ARTSNB Creation Grant in 2021 for her ECHOES proposal and was accepted to the Kingsbrae International Artists Residency program in New Brunswick, Canada to begin work on that series.

Living the dream, she now works in two studios, one in St Petersburg, Florida and the other in Memramcook, New Brunswick.

Denise was introduced to the technique of Provincetown White Line Printmaking when her and her husband Brian were stationed near Seattle, Washington with his US Navy career. She’s excited about sharing this fun and friendly method with you…!

2 sessions of three hours each