On a sunny afternoon, Nick Butcher and Nadine Nakanishi, a married couple from the frozen Midwest, were hanging a large abstract canvas brushed with red-and-blue shapes outside the gallery of the Honolulu Museum Art School. Co-founders of the Sonnenzimmer graphic arts studio in Chicago, they had flown in to jury the 2015 Honolulu Printmakers Exhibition.

The stately white halls of the historic Honolulu Museum of Art School building, also called Linekona, were enlivened by ranks of papier-mache panda bears made by young students and the energetic movements of the pair clad in sneakers, shirts and jeans.

"This is our work," said Butcher, 35, of the canvas. "It didn’t have a title until just a minute ago when someone asked. We’ve named it ‘From Lincoln to Linekona.’ It’s a monotype print, one of a kind."

Why did it look like a painting? "You can paint on paper with a special dye, press it onto fabric with high heat, and the dye will transfer. It’s a newer thing we’re doing," said Naka-nishi, 38.

New is the buzzword for this 87th annual printmakers’ exhibition. The juxtaposition of edgy, contemporary works alongside classic lithographs and etchings expands and challenges one’s notion of what makes a print.

In three days, Butcher and Nakanishi selected 105 works from more than twice as many submissions and decided which to give awards of excellence. Then "they designed and curated the entire exhibition. It’s the first time that jurors have done all this," said Duncan Dempster, 42, the organization’s executive director.

The result is the group’s freshest, most enjoyable show in years.

Paul Weissman, a Kauai artist, was commissioned by the membership to create their 2015 Gift Print, sales of which fund education and outreach. The lithograph, "Water, Everywhere," depicts a cloud-capped green mountain — the ahupuaa of Manoa — where rain falls and water flows down, consumed by various users. One sees how very little soaks into the ground to recharge our aquifers.

"It’s probably the most accessible of my works," said Weissman, 66.

The print’s simple, woodcut look belies its painstaking, multilayered production process.

Similarly, in Allyn Bromley’s dazzling 3-D meadow, each flower and blade of grass was printed, then cut out by hand.

Kamran Samimi, a graduate student at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, hand-cut large monolithic shapes out of pressed wood to make a pair of stunning black-and-white woodblock prints.

All of the works, however mixed their media, were hand-pulled off stones, plates, silkscreens and the like, Dempster said.

"While there are times that people integrate digital technology, we ask that the majority of a piece be done with traditional hand-printing techniques."

He added that he was especially proud of the diversity of age and experience among this year’s artists.

Some prints were hung. Others stood on the floor or pedestals, leaning against walls — and one on a ledge above a fire door.

"I hope people come and feel the vibrancy," Nakanishi said.

A must-see, this late winter show fairly bursts with the essence of spring.