Welcome to the studio, Mason!

Last Saturday was an exciting day at the studio. Mason, our new foster press was delivered! After months of trying to co-ordinate between Sigrid, Craig and I, it finally came together! Mason ( a Vandercook SP15 that is rumoured to once have belonged to a famous Canadian writer that current mayor Rob Ford had never heard of ) was delivered to it's new long term temporary home at KOZO Studio. Along with Mason, Sigrid also gave me several boxes filled with various ornaments, leading, rules, metal display type and ink to use with Mason! Thank you Sigrid! I'll keep it all safe for your working visits to the studio.

It was a beautiful day for moving Mason. The last thing you want to do is movie a big press made of steel in the rain! As you can see from the photos we had lots of sun, a little bit of a breeze and a nice fall temperature! Thanks to Craig Black, Nick Kennedy and Albert Kwon for doing the pick up and delivery! Next time I have to remember to have more Coca Cola around.

So, right now the studio is in a state of disarray. Well, more than usual disarray! I've been sorting leads, cleaning and sorting ornaments, finding space for type and moving big pieces of furniture around (with the help of Ken and Albert - thank you, guys).  Now that all the press stuff and moving is settled I'll be able to start workshops again next week. Not sure how the new floor layout will work in terms of flow. Hopefully it will be fine. It ain't easy moving cases of lead and heavy metal presses around! We'll see how it goes.

Nick and Craig moving Mason onto the hydraulic cart.
Nick's new Universal Press is behind him.

Nick  and Albert posing on the hydraulic lift!

Lift down and now To move Mason onto the sidewalk...

...with a handy piece of flat steel to use as a ramp. 

The cool edge pry/lift-y thing helping craig get Mason onto the sidewalk.

There's Mason on the sidewalk.
Sorry guys. Mason is not going to walk into the studio on it's own!

Artistic Printing

Wow. It's been a while since I last posted. Sorry.
I have a lot of catching up to do!

In March my family took a two week vacation in Florida. Good weather, nice beaches and some downtime. While we were there we met up with Don and Ruth Black for an afternoon and dinner. Don showed us a bunch of new books on letterpress type that he had acquired. For me it was like looking at a book with pictures of all kinds of delicious tempting candy. Beautiful wood type and metal type fonts page after page! I had also brought a book called "The Handy Book of Artistic Printing" to show Don. He had never seen it. It's a paperback whose pages are filled with images of beautiful, densely printed ephemera letterpress done in the late 1800's in a style that was called Artistic Printing. Here is a peek.

The artistically printed style cover.

I'd love to see and try out one of these curving machines for rules!
They created all sorts of images by custom bending rules for clients. Plants, swirls even portraits!!

Look at all the individual pieces used to create this one corner of the image!!!

Hearts, Love and all things pink and red!

For about five years now I have been making gift cards for Soma Chocolatemaker. I've spent the last few days at the studio making their Valentine's Day gift cards. Hearts. Pink. Red. I have never been in love with the whole scheme of Valentine's Day scheme being red, white, pink with hearts and cupids! I'm so thankful that at Soma they like the brown card stock I use for their cards!!  I don't know if I could stand to print Valentine's cards if they all had to be on white or pastel colours. For me, the brown stock makes the subject and colour a little less... ummmmm... dislikable? Perhaps it''s because I like to think of the brown card stock as wonderful chocolate! They could probably even pay me in chocolate...

I tried printing on the Craftsman for the first time. Since these cards are gift card size it's a good size to try out on the Craftsman. The press is not working as smoothly as I think it should be, but it is printing well. One thing I don't have are the pins to hold the paper in place for printing! Oops! I had to fashion some out of layered cardboard. I was impressed! They worked pretty well. I was able to register the red hearts in line with the pink type using them! I won't be keeping my cardboard pins though. On Friday I'll go to see Craig Black at Don Black Linecasting to pick up some brass pins for the press and see if he has any suggestions for getting the press to work a little more smoothly.

Top: The Craftsman press with a locked up heart.
Bottom: My makeshift pins!
Right: Really nice wood type font in quarter cases.

Printed with metal type.

X's and O's printed with metal type.

A bit too much pressure with the small type.

The Rockwell metal type prints so nicely!

Photos from Don Black Linecasting

These are pictures of the Don Black Linecasting  "class trip" I organized in the beginning of October. I forgot to bring my camera so these are taken by our friend, photographer Michael Robinson, who came on the trip because he likes all things old!
Thanks Mike!

Like the type says.

 On the way into the Warehouse

When you walk into the warehouse this is what you see on your right. In the foreground is the Intertype machine and in the background against the wall is a flatbed press they use for proofing. Craig was kind enough to show everyone how the Intertype machine worked and he also cast some type for some of the group!

Ooo! Hot foil stamping!! Craig is demo-ing the hot foil stamper for Nerissa.

Shiny!

One of the most popular styles of presses these days! This is a floor model.

Two part qoins. I used these at school!

The name is in the photo! I still have a fear of these! Joe from Pomegranate Press told me a "poke your eye out" story about one!

A beautiful old paper cutter.

Lots of wood furniture!

Large Foundry type

some of the mechanical parts of the Intertype machine.

Printing some cuts

Rolling!

Beth takes a look at some images "hot off the press"! She even bought a small press just like my Showc

The cuts and the print on the bed of the press.

They have walls of drawers of letterpress stuff!!

Craig's work area.

A pile of lead "pigs" for casting type. We used them for weights for pressing handmade paper when I was at O.C.A.!

More drawers of stuff AND a bunch of presses that Craig is working on.

 

 MORE!!!

Packaged type and ornaments for sale.

Tanya from Snap + Tumble checking out the Ludlow mats and composing them in a casting stick. Craig let my husband, Ken, demo type casting on the Ludlow for us.

Drawers of type!

I believe these drawers contain mats for the Ludlow. The drawers are beautiful!

Wood type in a drawer.

Tanya, Christine and I looked at drawer upon drawer of cuts!

Craig setting up the hot foil stamper.

I was looking for ornaments and a cute little font to use for my Wayzgoose Anthology submission.

Craig talking with Nerissa.

Don Black Linecasting

We had a great time on Saturday morning at Don Black Linecasting! I was a bit groggy as I am a night person, but I managed to get to the studio before 9 am to meet everyone. Luckily we had three vehicles and so everyone got to go to Scarborough by car. Unfortunately we had several people who had to drop out last minute due to illness. Yup. It's that time of year again where colds are making their rounds of infecting unsuspecting humans!

When we got there Tanya and Christine had already arrived. I talked to Craig a bit and then we decided to start. Well, I had to start. After introducing Craig (Don's son who has taken over the business), the space and my husband (who was demo-ing type/linecasting on the Ludlow) everyone basically went wherever they wanted and started poking around and asking questions. 

We were lucky! Craig had a variety of presses that were restored and ready for sale. I fell in love with a Showcard flatbed press that has a bed size 4x my Mini Showcard! It was beautiful, but if I get another press I really want a flatbed press with a bigger bed than my Vandercook. I wish I had enough cash to buy one of every style of press... that's the collector in me... but one must at least try to be practical! I answered quite a few questions about presses. I know one person bought a small press and I believe another has their name on a press for when it comes in. 

Craig was a wonderful host! He patiently and kindly answered SO many questions, he let us rummage around freely and just before we left he even reminded us that the Intertype was heated up and if we had time we should see it in motion. I felt everyone should see that! It's an amazing machine. I used one when I was in art college and loved it. Craig showed us how it basically worked and cast people's names for them. A great souvenir from a great day at Don Black Linecasting (the letterpress candy shop!).

I was so busy I forgot to take pictures. Luckily our friend Mike Robinson, who is a professional photographer, took plenty of photos. He's putting them on a disk for me. I hope to have those up by the end of the week!!

For now all I have are pics of the cast type I bought for a short piece about my son for Wayzgoose 2011 and some ornaments that I found to add to the few I already had.

"Class Trip" to Don Black Linecasting

The Oct. 2nd trip to Don Black's warehouse is coming up on Saturday! Should be fun. I can't help but think of Don and Craig's warehouse as a sort of candy shop for printers! I'm hoping that we can car pool so those of you who want to go and drive a car please consider bringing one or two others in your vehicle if possible.

So far, here is the list of who is going. If I have left your name off the list by mistake or you want to attend please contact me so I can give you last minute directions in case we have a car.
Quinn
Jeffrey
Emily
Christine
Mike
Cheryl (?)
Ken

We'll be meeting at the studio at 9:00 to organize TTC and/or car pools!

March Break is Over.

Back from vacation in chilly Florida!

Got together with Don and Ruth Black for a day while we were down there.

Don had several books on the table when we got there... I think he knew I would be tempted!

One was the "Hamilton Specimens of Wood Typefaces" published by Shooting Star Press. It's a reprint of Hamilton's 17th issue of their Wood Type Catalogue from the early 1900's. Beautiful!

Don let me have his copy since we're not sure whether the publisher would ship to Canada and how much more it may cost. Thank you, Don!

Once I figure out what is wrong with my scanner hook-up I'll scan a few pages for all to see.

For now, here is a picture of the cover.

WAYZGOOSE '08

This year we celebrated the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Grimsby Wayzgoose! Bill Poole, my instuctor from O.C.A., founded this Wayzgoose in his hometown of Grimsby thirty years ago to try and make people aware of the art and craft of fine printing. Originally, in 1978, it was only supposed to be a one time event! Oh well! I'm glad it asn't!

When I was an art school student 20-ish years ago, Bill Poole encouraged his class to participate in the Wayzgoose Anthology and attend the event. I have been attending almost every year since then (I missed three years when I was apprenticing in Japan!). A lot of faces have changed in the last 20 years, but happily, many of the faces have also stayed the same. A small handfull of people even date back to that first Wayzgoose Bill Poole organized!

I think we all travel the distance to Grimsby because it is the one event of the year where we are really understood and appreciated by the public that attend. They don't ask us why we print using lead type or why we still bind books the old fashioned way with a needle, thread and fine materials or why we MAKE paper. They "get it" and they love it! It is also great to be gathered with everyone in one place. We sell, we admire, we spend, we chat and then, once the publlic is gone, we relax, have a nice dinner and celebrate!

Bill Poole has been gone several years now. I know he'd be thrilled to know that the Grimsby Wayzgoose is still going strong thanks to all the work of the staff at the Grimsby Public Art Gallery.

My Daughter and I chatting to a guest.

N. Kennedy (standing) and T. Dannenburg (seated) talking shop.

K. Wrigglesworth and a table full of stuff from Don Black Linecasting. Now the rest of it is back at KOZO Studio.

My friend, printmaker F. Tomas of Utility Grade.

Wood engraver, author, teacher G. Walker talking to Don Black of Don Black Linecasting fame.