December 2012

Thank you to Lily who took these great photos during the seven weeks of the ABCs of Letterpress class she participated in! Lily brought a real camera every week to take photos. The rest of us just used our cell phones. I had a great time with this group. We even had a little Christmas party with baked goods and non-alcoholic Mimosas!

The space.

One part of a two colour project.

"Always kiss me goodnight" on the Vandercook SP 15.

Hand set type project!

Brady's hand setting project up close.

Luis's hand setting project... almost ready.

 

I love this shot!
Luis's hand set project... nice use of ornaments and centring.

Lily's form ready to be put to the test.
Will everything stay in place when it is lifted?

Proofing Lily's hand set type project on the Craftsman.

Proofing with Lily on the Craftsman.

Working away.

...and finished! It looks amazing!

At the Vandercook SP 15 with Luis.

While on vacation...

We were doing our annual fall road trip and ended up going to Massachusetts. We stayed in the town of Lee in the Berkshires. Lucky for us it was just half an hour away from John Barrett's weekend letterpress shop/warehouse Letterpress Things! I could have bought so much...

Metal display type.

Nicely sorted quads and spaces for sale by weight.

Furniture racks and furniture sold by weight.

The picture says it all!

Printer drawers, card stock,  and many other maybe useful odds and ends.

Time to tally up.

...and don't forget this...

My daughter waiting patiently. She knows what to expect so she brought a book!!

Beautiful presses that need some tlc and a good home.

My big purchase. A set of new old wood type.

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!

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.

WUNDERKAMMER - new project!

It's fall. Kids are back at school and I have started going back to the studio. I seem to have forgotten where I keep a lot of things. Where are my bone folder?!?! Where is my fine grit snadpaper?!?!

Anyroad, my first project (thanks to Sheila and Nat's enthusiasm and push) is a show called Wunderkammer Cabinet. Yes, if you know German the title is redundant -but hey! We thought just calling it Wunderkammer would be too vague for the average non-German speaker.

My husband and I gave this large oak cabinet to myself late last fall as a Christmas, new baby <:(  present. Sheila saw it and thought it would be great for a collective show. Now that time has passed since our sons still birth and I feel ready to get back into my studio, Sheila and Nat have helped me get me into the studio to get this project off the ground. Where do they get their energy?!? The posters for the artists call are letterpress printed using hand set wood and metal type  and computer printed for the body copy.

Don Black Linecasting trip

The group that I took to see Craig at Don Black Linecasting were great! A really interesting group of people! I think a good and informative time was had by all.
Craig Black was awesome! He let everyone cast type on the C4 Intertype and on the Ludlow (my husband helped manage the Ludlow). People could take their time and really look around. I bought a small case of wood furniture, another person bought a platen press, my friend bought a tray of foundry type...I think almost everyone bought something from Craig. I hope we didn't frazzle him too much.
Yup! It's a letterpress candy store! And it's in Toronto! Yay!


Craig talking to some of the group.


Typing at the Intertype machine


Looks scary?


Matrices about to be cast.