Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope this latest post finds you well and relaxed after the holidays. I recently returned from a lovely trip to Barbados with my husband and family. The two weeks away was great and I highly recommend this island nation as a great place to get away from it all. I've returned a few pounds heavier from the lack of stress and a few too many helpings of flying fish, cou cou and macaroni pie. The sun has also returned me to a normal skin tone (instead of translucent white) - thus making my husband's term of endearment - "Casper" (a.k.a. the Friendly Ghost) - no longer applicable.

For Christmas, I was given some very useful gifts related to letterpress and design. My parents bought me a Wacom tablet so I can finally do my illustrations directly on the computer (rather than scan and trace etc. using Illustrator). I can't wait to get it installed and working. They also bought me a great book that I recommend to anyone in the fine art/craft field that wants to sell their work - the book is called Craft Inc: Turn Your Creative Hobby Into a Business.

My friend Nikki, who always comes to help me at art and craft markets, got me a proper money box, money rolls, a handy calculator, and other gadgets that are useful for me at sales (even hand sanitizer!).

My in-laws also bought me a very thoughtful gift - a cover-all type of smock to wear while printing, complete with "Sunlit Media" and some cherry blossoms screenprinted on the front. Very cool! I will get my husband to take a photo of me in the smock soon.

While I was away, I had time to sit and think about where I want to take Sunlit Letterpress this year. As the Craft Inc. book discusses, once a trend catches on (like letterpress, or Gocco, or bird motifs, or crochet donuts...), it becomes really important to differentiate yourself. In letterpress, with so many people trying to get started, I want to keep high quality standards, and maybe try to stay away from the more common items people are producing these days (like letterpress coasters, calendars, and so on). Not that there is anything wrong with these items (who doesn't love Sesame Letterpress' coasters, or Ilee's calendars???) - I just want to push myself to do something different. I'd also love to get more involved in the wedding industry, and try focusing my efforts there a bit more this year.

Anyways, enough of that...here are some photos of some calling cards I recently completed for a client. I loved designing them, and I'm head over heels for the way they turned out. Thank you Kristen for being such an awesome client!








Until next time...Happy letterpressing!

A Bun in the Oven...

I haven't had much of a chance to sit still lately - as I prepare for the Got Craft show, but I thought I'd post one of my cards that will be for sale at the show. I have three friends that are recently pregnant, and I noticed a lack of cards on the market that express a "Yay, you're pregnant!" message. So here is my creation...

(For those of you who like my "process" posts, I apologize, but I am short on time - so you only get to see the end product :)

Happy letterpressing!

Latest Project...

This weekend I decided to be productive and get some work done on the Kelsey. Things have been very busy at the studio the last few months, but as we ease into Summer, I find I have a bit more time to spend with my press.

I recently decided to participate in a small notecard/greeting card exchange with a group of fellow graphic designers. I only had to make a limited number of cards of any size, so I opted for something small and relatively quick. In fact, because I haven't designed anything new for photopolymer, I decided to get more use out of the bird I used in my studio's New Year 2007 client cards. That's the beauty of photopolymer (and metal type/cuts as well) is that you can recycle and reconfigure your designs and make something new without much hassle. All I did was cut the bird out of the New Year card plate, reposition it on the Boxcar Base, and away I went.

Just to demonstrate the nice impression I'm getting with the Crane Lettra paper, I took a photo of an blind impression (no ink):



For this project, I also decided to use my new rubber-based inks from Van Son. I prefer rubber base because it seems to set faster and the colors don't seep as much (in my experience). But, each printer has his/her own preference.




Here is the mixing of the ink - for the pastel purple I used a large pea-size of white, and mixed in little bits of red and blue until I got the right mix. One thing I've learned since I started using inks is that the pigment is so intense for most colours that you really don't need too much when mixing with lighter colors.




In the next photo, I placed the ink on the ink disc (the rotating disc where the rollers pick up the ink).



Afterwards the ink is spread around the disc as the rollers go over it.




And here is the finished product:

And of course, my website on the back - for a little self-promotion...

And finally, a bit of cleaning. You can see my bottle of Crisco on the right, and my rag on the left. Another thing I've learned since using my press - hang on to old rags! I use rags left and right for cleaning up the disc and rollers and plates. Old T-shirts work quite nicely - but this one is an old dish rag that has seen better days and has since been cut into slices.

As for upcoming projects - I've still got to get those business cards done. That's first on the list. Then a letterpress self-promo item for local wedding service providers. Then a few other special projects that I have planned. I will post the projects as I go.

Hope you enjoyed this post - as always, happy letterpressing!

Technical Difficulties...

I recently ordered photopolymer plates and a base from Boxcar Press, as I have heard so many great things about the base and set up. When I received them, I had the base and plates set up within 10 minutes, so I was impressed with how easy it was.

After trying a run with no ink, I discovered that unfortunately I am not getting much of an impression at all. I know that that is common with the Kelsey's, but I've seen others get more that I am, so that is a bit strange. I tried a few different papers (Arches, Somerset) and no change. I tried packing behind the tympan, and no change.

So last night I tried a run with ink, just to see how things would go. I am using a Van Sons red rubber ink. The results were not so good, and I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. Sigh...

The artwork turned out much better on the lined school paper than on the art paper. The only problems I can think of would be:

1. not enough ink - but I doubt this, as I was told you don't need much, and on the heavier spots, it was bleeding almost totally through the paper
   
2. not enough packing?
   
3. the impression screws aren't tight enough?