Nothing says Arizona like pointy Tuscan Gothic wood type by WM Page as well as highlighting the fact that we do have AIR CONDITIONING and indoor restrooms!
Showing posts with label typesetting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label typesetting. Show all posts
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Letterpress Central to host National Printing Conference!
We are hosting the APA letterpress printing conference in 2013. Yippee!
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
A&G Engravings--Letterpress Source
We met the folks at A&G engraving (super nice!) at the printer's fair because they were right by us. They do a whole plethora of things including magnesium and copper blocks. The letterpress pieces they had in their booth that were done with their plates were fabulous. We still use magnesium plates (in addition to polymer) so it is nice to find a west coast source! Here's a scan of a typical price set. 
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
We're Back!
Well hello there!We didn't really go anywhere but as lots of you know, we've been renovating and reorganizing our space. It always takes way longer than you think it will. We are starting to put down the paint brushes and pick up the the type and pulp!
Mike and I thought it would be fun to do a poster and sent it out to the local folks. Whenever Mike and I work together, there is LOTS of negotiating and compromising!! :) Gary usually tries to steer clear of our collaborations but he helped print the last layer. We think it turned out fun. (we found that it is actually hard to print backwards on purpose!)
Next on my to do list is getting the fall classes online. Coming soon!!
Here's some photos!
Here's Mike in our newly painted and renovated type space. This area was previously used for storage with ginormous racking where the type cabinets are now.
I love this new-to-us, old wood type. So fun!
I love this old cut of this gal singer. I'm sure she's singing with joy that we are back!
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Winter Blue Handmade Letterpressed Book
Since Mike put the kibosh on my printing three ideas at one time--i.e. talking some common sense into me, I still needed to get those ideas worked out of my head and onto paper. They just took different directions with different projects. I wanted to do a series of snowflakes with three ink runs over handmade blue jean paper--for a project with a them of blue--could you have guessed that? 
I made a plate with chipboard snowflakes that we die cut and glued down and made type-high.
Here's Donna on her maiden run on the Vandercook. See how her clothes coordinate with the project? It always seems that I'm wearing the color of ink I'm printing that day. I figure it's a biological mimicry strategy so if I get ink on me, then no one will know ;) We printed the front side of the paper with 3 colors and the back side with only the dark snowflake color. We rotated the paper each pass to get movement on the page in terms of shape and color.
We started with the darkest color ink first and they went to opaque lighter inks. I love the tone on tone!
The last layer we printed wood type in white for the text--it's a cinquain poem titled Winter Blue. It was a long printing day with a couple of snafus during the day but near the end I was generally elated. I exclaimed to Donna--"We make a great team"! I thought so because we never printed together and it worked out so well.
"Not really" was her reply as she didn't miss a beat and kept printing. I almost coughed up a lung and totally burst out laughing when she said that--she has such dry sense of humor! She explained that snafus might not happen if we were a better team--or she had more experience printing. I think about every editioned project we do whether its papermaking, letterpress, bookbinding--sometimes it goes smooth as glass and other times snafus & hiccups are bound to happen--you run out of the right letters of type, there can be a last minute typo, the packing on the press changes, sheets won't form, glue won't dry, Federal Express is closing in 15 minutes, etc. You just have to adjust where you can while maintaining the original intent and keep on going. The final outcome is the reward. By the way, she is the best art partner!
I made a plate with chipboard snowflakes that we die cut and glued down and made type-high. Here's Donna on her maiden run on the Vandercook. See how her clothes coordinate with the project? It always seems that I'm wearing the color of ink I'm printing that day. I figure it's a biological mimicry strategy so if I get ink on me, then no one will know ;) We printed the front side of the paper with 3 colors and the back side with only the dark snowflake color. We rotated the paper each pass to get movement on the page in terms of shape and color.We started with the darkest color ink first and they went to opaque lighter inks. I love the tone on tone! The last layer we printed wood type in white for the text--it's a cinquain poem titled Winter Blue. It was a long printing day with a couple of snafus during the day but near the end I was generally elated. I exclaimed to Donna--"We make a great team"! I thought so because we never printed together and it worked out so well."Not really" was her reply as she didn't miss a beat and kept printing. I almost coughed up a lung and totally burst out laughing when she said that--she has such dry sense of humor! She explained that snafus might not happen if we were a better team--or she had more experience printing. I think about every editioned project we do whether its papermaking, letterpress, bookbinding--sometimes it goes smooth as glass and other times snafus & hiccups are bound to happen--you run out of the right letters of type, there can be a last minute typo, the packing on the press changes, sheets won't form, glue won't dry, Federal Express is closing in 15 minutes, etc. You just have to adjust where you can while maintaining the original intent and keep on going. The final outcome is the reward. By the way, she is the best art partner!
Sunday, July 08, 2007
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