How to Riso Workshop
Join us for How to Riso, an instructional course from Shandaken Projects, where master printmaker Patrick Costello offers in-person, onsite training in risography. Designed especially for artists, How to Riso will teach participants how to work independently on a Risograph 9450—a contemporary model that easily prints high-quality, high-volume reproductions. This is a free course, with 10 participants in each class, which will take place in the Pioneer Works Design Lab.
Participants are welcome to bring an upcoming Riso project or design file to get expert advice and hands-on support throughout the course. How to Riso is best suited for artists with a basic knowledge of Photoshop. Please inquire with any questions about course content or suggested background skills.
Topics covered include:
- Introduction to printmaking basics
- How to use and care for a Risograph printer
- How to contact print using a Riso scanner
- Best practices for soy-based Riso inks
- How to choose paper for Riso projects
- How to achieve full-spectrum effects with spot color
- How to make color separations for "CMYK" Riso prints
- How to perfect halftone reproductions
- How to Riso print the crispest, clearest text
- How to make digital proofs for Riso prints
- How to finish book projects with stack cutting, staple binding, or perfect binding
The course will be offered throughout May 2026 on the following dates: May 9, May 19, May 24, and May 26, from 12-5 pm.
Patrick Costello is an artist whose work integrates practices of ecological horticulture, installation, printmaking, and performance. He has exhibited work at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit; Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, NY; and Stone Quarry Hill Art Park, Cazenovia, NY. He has performed in venues including Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Brooklyn, NY; Ars Nova, New York, NY; The Philadelphia Museum of Art; and The Public Theater, New York, NY.
Costello was the recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship, was a printer-in-residence with Shandaken Projects, and has participated in residencies at Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, LMCC, ACRE, and The Soil Factory, among others. His writing has appeared in Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture. He holds an MFA from Hunter College and a BA from the University of Virginia.
Shandaken Projects is a small scale 501(c)3 nonprofit that supports cultural advancement through public programs and artist services. These opportunities are focused on process, experimentation, and dialogue, and are aimed particularly at important but underserved individuals. Through their free residency programs, public art initiatives, and commissions and exhibitions, Shandaken Projects creates possibilities for cultural practitioners to forge new pathways in their work and in the world.
Shandaken Projects believes that research, experimentation, and the pursuit of new ideas are vital steps in the progress of culture, and that the creative community must safeguard space for them. Shandaken Projects provides an alternative organizational model and significant opportunities for this community in an independent environment.