Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Woodblock Letterpress printing - 2

Last night I went to my second class of woodblock letterpress printing at the Dawson Printshop. The first project is a simple greeting card and last night I was able to print the first colour on mine. We were using a Vandercook Universal 1 proof press.


Definitely a big part of the fun is looking through the drawers of type, selecting fonts and designing the layout and all that. So, here is the wooden type that I picked out and arranged, set on the bed of the printer and ready to go. ("Bed"? Is that the right word? Still not overly confident with the lingo!) I do like how the extra wooden blocks for spacing are called furniture. (So maybe it is a bed.)


I was the first one to start printing so Niko was using my session as a demo for the class so she is here helping me get started.


In the end, I have the first colour down on the cards. Here are a couple of the test prints -


Another member of the class was taking lots of pictures for me, thanks Radhika!

5 comments:

Cynthia Schelzig said...

Well this looks like you had a fun evening!

Tammie Lee said...

such a wonderful thing to learn how to do!

PrairiePeasant said...

Boy, that press looks a little intimidating! I took a one day class a couple of years ago, and we used smaller table top presses. I can see you integrating this into your books very nicely!

Carol said...

This looks like a great workshop with Niko. Appreciate the pics, keep them coming.

MyHandboundBooks said...

Thanks Cynthia, TammieLeee, PP, and Carol!

Laura, they have some smaller table top presses too. I hope to try them before the class is over!

It would be great to incorporate some letterpress into my bookmaking. Although it's not as if I have any of the tools at my disposal under normal circumstances. I need a bigger house.