End of an era

 

When I was printing the 2026 NY cards I realised that it would be the last print run that I would do in the large public studio gallery space we have operated for the last 6 years including through covid times.

The next lot of printing will be done in a much smaller home based space.

I also rather like that the last print run was done with deep purple/violet - such lovely patterns on the inking plate when it was time to clean up - opening and closing images.

Process photos including print in the press and proofs.

Filling the drying racks.

And the final outcome.

It was a good feeling knowing that the final print run would also be the new beginning for the new year.  

I really do hope that we can all take the time to gather small moments/bits of beauty; be open to the small joys of life; take what actions we can to bring about change; and above all reach out to others in kindness.

Joy of printing

 

It felt good to be at Deckled Edge Press studio today - working with text, paper and playing with ink.

As you can see from the photo above and the couple below I had a lovely time mixing gold and black ink on the plate to create a black with a golden hue.

During the week I had spent a morning cutting paper remnants into cards for mini-posters and business card sized inspiration cards.

Today I got to print some weather grams on recycled cutlery envelopes (both brown and black paper) for International Day of Peace in September. Given the type was set and the paper was cut during the week I also printed some mini-posters as you can see below.

As I saud in the opening sentence - it just felt great to be in the studio printing; printing words that mean a lot to me;  and printing mini-posters I can give away.

Favourite fonts

 

Fiona and I have been on a mission to create a full cabinet of the metal letterpress type we like and use reasonably regularly. We had to select type from across 4 cabinets and our goal was to create a single cabinet. That goal was realised today after about 12 months of on and off effort - see the cabinet above. 

The cabinet is an antique that has had many many years of use - if you look closely you can see where type trays have been replaced and repaired; some are still damaged; and different  labelling has been done. 

Some process photos of the sifting, sorting and transferring from the past few weeks follow. 

To create each new tray of type in our cabinet it was necessary to empty out another tray that would live in one of the other 3 cabinets; and then transfer the type from one of those cabinets - which Fiona had marked with a white dot - into the vacant tray. It takes 1.5 to 2 hours to transfer each tray of type depending on the size of the font and volume of type. So  over the last 12 months many many hours have spent doing this task.

Completing this task just makes our letterpress printing life that bit more organised. the remaining task for me is to transfer some of our favourite Elongated Anglo Saxon type which we bought in an online auction into the cabinet. 

Preparing for IDP

 

Fiona and I are fully into preparing weather grams for International Day of Peace (21 September 2024). This year we are both printing weather grams on recycled brown paper cutlery holders from local food outlets - collected by family and friends.

In all we had enough cutlery holders to print 240 weather grams. On Friday night we had a gathering with a few friends and over some wine and cheese we punched holes in and threaded cord through all the weather grams - see opening photo for some of the completed weather grams. The photos below shows the start of assembling of the weather grams. A lot of fun was had in assembling the weather grams, sharing food and wine and friendship.

Following are a few process photos. You can see that this year I have printed the words create peace here - meaning start by creating or offering peace locally. Fiona has used peace is every step - a quote from Thich Nhat Hanh. The weather grams were printed on one of our presses at Deckled Edge Press using 48 point lower case Placard Bold metal type.

These weather grams will make their way out into the world so that they can be tied in trees and on fences etc to flutter and fly on International Day of Peace and hopefully send a few ripples of peace into the world.

Prints and printing

 

Fiona has been experimenting with how we might turn some of my wee Scotland inspired watercolours into cards. As you can see from the photos above and below I think she has nailed it.

I will probably take some of these back to Scotland so we can sell them at one or two of the art-craft markets if we can book a spot.

Local people have been collecting brown paper cutlery sleeves for us. They are aware that we use them to print our peace weather grams later in the year. However, because we have quite a stash I have decided to print 50 "but first kindness' weather grams so that they can go out into the world and spread the message. A few photos of the printing process from today follow.

In this rainy weather, and because the paper is not very absorbent, the printing will take a week or more to fully dry. So they will rest in the studio for a while before being packaged up and sent on their way. 

This, that and the other

The last couple of days has seen me doing a number of tasks including: cutting stone; melting metal; progressing small flatpack plinths; and printing letterpress cards.

I cut some Armadale cove stones in half for a future project Fiona has in mind; and did a rough cut of a cottage as well. See opening photo and the photo following. Regarding the cove stones it will be a matter of watch this space!!!

I wanted to make a few more sand-cast metal pyramids. As you can see from the photos below I managed to cast 7; and a few other forms as well.

For an art piece Fiona is working on for Scotland she wants 7 small plinths - four different sizes. We will need to take these over to Scotland so we have designed light weight but strong plywood plinths that can be pre-cut and painted and taken as luggage. In the photo below you can see the first three cut to size and sanded. We have tested paint on the first one I cut.

I went to Deckled Edge Press today where Fiona was working on some small letterpress poetry books. We needed to replenish the stock of some of our cards so today I managed to do a small run of three cards - Fiona had pre-cut the paper and printed our website on the back cover. Photo of proofs below.

Bits and pieces; but all contributing to our art life.

Letterpress day

 

Fiona and I spent most of the day at Deckled Edge Press. We were working away on a couple of  projects. One task was to get our 2024 cards printed so that they can dry; and then be sent out for the new year.

We decided that we would send out a message of hope and kindness this year. 

Fiona has chosen to print the numerals in a gorgeous purple (opening photo); whereas I am letting bright orange introduce the year. 

Process photos follow. Each of the cards had to be hand rolled with the 50mm rollers in the opening photo as we wanted each card to be bi-coloured and printed in one operation of the press.

In all we have printed 80 cards in a nano-poster format (portrait) even though the cards will be sent as post cards (landscape). The 80 cards include some that are slightly different as I played with mixing and overlapping colours on the last 10-15 cards. The last photo is of a few cards that were rolled as I was removing excess ink before cleaning the rollers.

The cards will carry good energy across the country and globe.