After the storms

Damaged fruit salvaged

Following on from the previous post: The digital print & letterpress combination initially went wrong because having worked out how to centre the digital printed orange, I left far too much newsprint packing under the printing paper, so the rollers on the Vandercook jammed half-way through printing. In pulling the paper back out, the top print surface of the orange was scuffed & marked. Playing around with a lino-cut type-high lower case 'a', I overprinted on the orange to hide the scuffs.
I finished by printing a large red 'o' (for orange) over the whole lot.

I like the fact that the wooden type, having been pushed too tightly into the paper to print, has made an embossing effect high-lighted by the overprinting.

Fruit Number 1

Triggered by finding this block (roughly 3cm square) in the archives of a printing business that thrived in Byker, I remembered the coloured tissue paper that fruit used to be wrapped in.

I had also just visited the Matisse paper-cuts exhibition, Drawing with Scissors at Stroud Museum, where I saw the lithographic print of his 1953 Nu aux Oranges.

This gave me the idea to make a letterpress fruit salad, starting with this reference to Jeanette Winterson's 1985 book.

The circle between the type is a digital print on coated archival 300gsm photographic paper which takes up the letterpress ink really well. The intention was that the circle sit centred with the type, but having messed up on the first attempt, I decided to make a print with the circle off-centre. This gave the happy accident of the top of the t just touching the bottom of the fruit & the dot on the i making the stalk mark. More fruit to come...

Printing Colour

The project is to print & play with the word "colour" using large wooden type. The largest letters (C & U) are about 38 cm tall. I don't have complete alphabets.

Once I've decided which size to use, I will draw the missing letters at the required size in Illustrator for use with a laser-cutter.
Wooden type was traditionally made from end-grain maple. I will need to decide whether to use wood (other than maple), MDF, lino or another material.
For printing, the beds of the 2 Vandercook proofing presses at UWE are too small to print the whole word. I can get 3 letters at a time on a Colombian press bed, or I could hand-burnish the letters.
I can split the word into 2 lines:

COL

OUR

I want to print on the same large sheet of paper, so need to investigate the largest paper sizes, or experiment with joining sheets together by sewing or folding (rather than just sticking).

Season's Greetings

Christmas tree woodcut made by my mum (Joyce Oliver) sometime in the 1950's or 60's, cleaned & printed some 50 years later on a Vandercook proofing press.

Winter Walker. Lino/vinyl cut based on a photo taken below the Daneway Inn near Sapperton, Gloucestershire, on a walk with Walking the Land in November 2012. Printed on a small Albion Press at the Gloucestershire Printmaking Coop in Thrupp.

And per se and or ampersand

Rolled coloured litho ink onto the wooden block by hand & (of course!) meant to keep the rollers on the Vandercook press up and out of contact while I put the paper through, but forgot, so the rollers took some print off the block and started their own mix. I went with the flow & carried on inking up the block with red, yellow &/or blue ink & turning the paper to get over-printing. Carried on printing not adding ink to get paler over-printings too. Could have carried on all night ...

Winter coat pocket treasures

We inherited my dad's long winter overcoat, and when my son was trying it on for size, we decided to check the inside pockets, and found these treasures!

The theatre ticket is from the Theatre Royal in Norwich. Going to the pantomime at Christmas with my grandparents & auntie was one of the holiday rituals. Wondering what the panto might have been 46 years ago, I googled "Theatre Royal Norwich 1967 pantomime" and to my delight was directed to an Eastern Daily Press article uploaded yesterday which contained an image of the dame in the 1967 production of ... Babes in the Wood!

The bus ticket is a Cheltenham District Traction Company ticket, probably purchased for a journey from Cheltenham to Prestbury on either the number 1 bus, or the 587 service. I can remember the smell and taste (I used to roll them up and "smoke" them) of those paper tickets.

The news receipt will have come from Prestbury Post Office and Newsagents where my parents ordered their newspapers. February 3rd was on a Saturday in 1968, just a few days before my 9th birthday.

The little note is written by me, and I am very touched that it stayed safe in dad's pocket for all those years. It is a request with the relevant telephone number and says,"Harriet come to tea on saturday with play clothes." Those were the days (my friend) when the black dialled telephone sat alone on the hall window sill, and was used nearly exclusively by our parents, who answered any call with a recital of the number, in the form of a question: "Hello, Cheltenham 7666?"