April

And so April draws to a close.

As the first month where I've really been up and running, I think it's been a good month. Successfully printed a set of business cards, two sets of blank cards, sending out stationary cards tomorrow, and printed a mother's day gift. (The last one you won't see until... guess when? mother's day!)

Overall I'm pleased. I've finally gotten to the point where I can fairly accurately gauge how long a project will take me to complete; and I've learned a lot about printing on a platen.

Oh! The photo for today was actually taken on Earth Day; it's a trillium that was in bloom near my house, that I happened to walk by when the sun was illuminating it.

First Job--Done!

Snazzy. Today I delivered the business cards for TJ's Cakes; what fun! I'm really happy with the way that they turned out.

Next in the printing line-up are the stationary cards! Unfortunately it's snowing outside, so the print shop is cold. Enforced study time for the student. But those will be this week, for sure.

Still on the hunt for cellophane bags to put cards in. I found some 3x4 inch ones, but those don't quite cut it.

Two Things

One of two things: It amazes me, probably because I have been immersed in the type world, that people don't know the difference between a serif and a sans-serif. So I made a little picture in word, took a screen shot of it, et le voila, a simple, easy to read picture that shows the difference between serif and sans. So now you know, if you didn't. And if you did, it was a brief refresher in Helvetica and Bell.

Two of two things: I found the best latin quote ever. And by found, I mean that during latin class, we were translating sentences, and this one came up. In latin, because I all ready geeked out about the serif/sans-serif thing, it would read:

MAGNAMCOPIAMLIBORUMFACIAM

fortunately, they like spaces and lower case now, so it reads:

Magnam copiam liborum faciam

which loosely translated, means:

I will make many books.

Fitting for a binder--and pretty good for a printshop.

Shot the Serif

So I'm not much for the "I shot the sheriff" song, but I thought that the "I shot the serif" was just too funny. Type humor at it's finest.

And in other news, I finished the TJ's Cakes business cards (I'll show them here once I've delivered them) this morning. Then I played around with an arrow typecut; it looks very Alice in Wonderland. It may be a slower longer project, because I think I want to layer multiple colors into it for an even more cheshire effect.

Oh! I started painting the press. So fantastic. I'll show you when it's more complete; right now I've only done two sections of about three thousand. (Slight exaggeration?)

Dusty Peachy Pink

A success and a semi success.

Success was in the business card realm, I got the background peachy pink color printed, I love love love the way it looks.

Semi success was in the cards; I'm still in love with the color, but not so much with the way it printed. Hmmm. I'll be thinking that one over while printing the second color on the business cards tomorrow.

Good stuff, overall. I really need to find a better way to register the paper though. Blue tape and cardboard just isn't cutting it.

Cards!

These were the trial run through the press; there are a few important things that I learned:

1. don't leave the paper catchers in the way when you're printing on a boxcar base. it will a. try to hurt the base, and b. not allow you to print. my base now has a small dent, fortunately in an area that will never be printed on.

2. those metal clips for registration are not worth it. I definitely have a dent in the base from that, and after i realized it I threw the little clip thing across the room and yelled at it for denting the boxcar base. Have since come up with a newer and better system, in my opinion.

3. printing is exceptionally gratifying. I knew that, but it reinforces the fact.

Happy Earth Day!

Yay!

It's here! The boxcar plates came today. Can't print until tomorrow, but they are here!

Yay!

Mailing List

I'm starting a mailing list! To send out samples and such. So if you would like to be on it, comment or send an email. I can't guarantee how frequently you'll get printing samples, but I'll be sure to send some!

And since there is no post on Sunday, I didn't get boxcar plates today.

But I did go up and clean the shop a bit.

Trials of Photoshop

I've been fighting with photoshop for most of the past few hours. The problem is that I was trained in photoshop in 2005, and the program has changed a lot since then. The basic idea is the same, but the finer points are evading me.

However, I expect to have my photoshop image off to boxcar by tomorrow, so I'm pretty excited. I'll get the polymer around tuesday, and be really and truly printing for the rest of the week.

Image of today: this is from fiveroses.org, it's what printing on a C&P really looks like.

And in other news, Bedford Creek Press got mentioned in M.C. Photography's blog! If you care to follow that, go here.

Drawing

I've been laying out the images to have made into polymer plates; since the past few days have limited my ability to be out in the press shop. And I've been sketching things. Next is putting everything in photoshop, and then sending it off to Boxcar. Hopefully by tomorrow. We'll see about that.

Tour

Quick tour: the chase, which for you non-printing types, is where you hold the image to be printed. The wall looking west in the press shop, and finally the newly painted cabinet drawers... which I still need to put the handles back on. But you can see that the cranberry/aged red interior looks far better than the army green exterior.

Today was spent learning how to adjust roller height (finally, after 18+ layers of blue tape) with my fancy new roller gauge, then printing with a variety of cuts, and figuring out how to get the correct registration. Platen presses are certainly much different than cylinder presses. But I'm starting to get the hang of it.

Boxcar Base

It's here!

Now, just to order plates!

I attempted to go and buy shirts for screen printing, but accidentally got children's sizes. Soo... back to exchange them later today.

Also, I just realized that people are commenting! I can't even tell you how much that made my day.

Proofs!

I'm still waiting for my boxcar base, but today I did pull the first proofs off the press. (Red is the only color I have at the moment.) How exciting! My rollers are a little low, but that's easy to fix. And then cleaned everything with Crisco + Denatured Alcohol, which worked wonders. I used to scoff at Crisco, but it makes things so easy!

A successful day in the print shop.

Spin Art

My little cousin has a spin art thing, so naturally we had some time creating spin art. It's going on my wall of inspiration things in the print shop.

Today I didn't do so well with earth friendly, other than remembering to recycle, and also accidental carpooling--accidental because it was only a practical thing, not a planned "enviro-friendly" thing.

Haven't heard anything from Boxcar to say that my base has been shipped; but I'm planning on being up in the press shop for a while tomorrow, starting to print cards, or at least work through the bumps of first printing on a platen.

Oh, and going to get shirts for the cool crowd that is getting tee-shirts.

Introducing...

I have a Chandler and Price Old Style, and now you can have one too!

...in tee shirt form that is. Mostly I made the pattern so that I could plaster just about every surface with an image of my press, but sharing is good too. (And they're not all printed on yellow, that just happens to be the example.)

Let me know what you think! And If you want one, let me know that too.

Flywheel

So. Today, the flywheel tried to fly off.

No, really. I think it was only holding on by about an eighth of an inch. And when we're talking a piece of cast iron that weighs (I'm not sure how much, but a lot) that's not much. So I wiggled it back on, we're all good now.

And I'm trying to make a screen print of a C&P old style. Right now it looks really good, but still has some holes that would let ink through in unfortunate places. Trial and error; but it looks awesome. I took the pattern from a line drawing I did of the C&P.

Trucks!

The trucks arrived! Go figure, they look a lot different than the old ones. But this means that tomorrow, I will be inking up and attempting to print something!

I painted all of the drawers for one of the type cabinets; changing from old olive green to pretty antique red did mean some serious primer, but that's done now. Just the handles left to paint and the main body.

April Fools' Day

Yesterday I spent some time cleaning the press; there are about 100 years of crud all over it. I did discover that underneath the ink/dust/grime layer, there are gold details; very pretty!

Hopefully this upcoming weekend will bring two things: first, the trucks. Maybe they will even come today or tomorrow. Secondly, the fine art of gooping, and filling in all of the lines between the pieces of sheet rock. It will be warm enough!

And if it really is that warm, I might paint the type cases too.