new linocut blocks

linocut prints (one and two colours)

greeting card designs

greetings cards (letterpress and lino)

digital prints

casebound sketchbooks from scratch 

letterpressed notebooks

business cards

sheets custom giftwrap

plus scoring, folding, trimming, gluing etc,
also pairing up with envelopes, cutting mattes,
framing and putting everything in cellophane!

Phew!

These last few weeks have been a bit of an ordeal as am not used to producing ‘stock’ but at least it has got me enough to make a good show at the Leeds Print Festival as well as finally getting my online shop organised.

THIS HAS GOT TO BE JUST ABOUT THE LAST CALL FOR LPF 2012 - although the event opens on the 27th – c’mon people, show your support – and there will be live printmaking on the evening of the 29th (I’ll be strutting my printerly stuff!) there’s a print fair on the 30th, and talks by leading practitioners: Generation Press,  Si Scott &  Anthony Burrill on the 31st – (tickets required). If you have any interest in print – in any form – you should try to get there – it’s all happening at the Leeds Gallery on Monroe Street – I can guarantee that your print fetishes will be catered for.

Last of all, I would like to give a big shout out to the organisers of LPF 2012 who have worked hard to make this happen – especially Aaron Skipper (a very, very talented graphic designer) and Amber Smith - just for the love of print! I am glad to be part of the event, and hope that we – my fellow participants, exhibitors, printmakers/sellers and speakers and I can help make it the success it deserves to be.  See you there!

I feel like I need to apologise for posting so much on this but it has been a fairly dominant presence for me over the last month or so. As I showed in my last post I have been continually preparing prints and books so that I have a decent amount of stock available for the print fair, but I’ve also been getting a few pieces ready for the Friday exhibition/demonstration evening.  

Although small in size as well as quantity this little project has been very time-consuming – indeed, I am still printing, cutting and sewing, in order to produce a few more in time for the Festival.

I have also been making lots of little notebooks…

Quite a few small batches in various sizes, all utilising different cover and page stocks, each with a different letterpressed cover, and pamphlet stitched in specially dyed linen thread!

These last few weeks have been a bit of an adventure for me – particularly preparing for a sale as I tend to print for my own satisfaction and am not used to producing ‘stocks’ but at least it has got me going enough to get my online shop organised.

If you click on the ‘SHOP’ heading at the top of the blog you will be taken to my retail debut – “The Department of Something Else” – I hope to be making more of my work available, more often and as always, I will keep you up to date here.

And of course that means doing things (and making mistakes) that are unique to letterpress, no CTRL+Z here!

Notice the pile of pied type in the last image. Bugger! It’ll take ages to sort that lot out again! I wouldn’t mind but I wasn’t using that fount - I just spilled it!

I have also cut a big (A3-ish) lino block which already had a number of prints run before I cut it into smaller pieces out of frustration!

This will be one of my bookbinding projects for the Friday evening – if all goes well!

I still have  some books left to bind, and one or two covers to attach, as well as a lot of packaging, but I am getting a bit excited now! Sorry for going on about this, but there you go!

These job opportunities were recently advertised in my local paper - the Lynn News and may be a reflection of the governments new policies to improve care for the elderly.

This is not a spelling error; an institution as fine and respectable as this would not allow a simple lapse in concentration to sully its pages, nor miss the digressions of a mischievous intern. This is, good readers, a finely positioned hickey. A hickey is an error during the printing process which results in a white spot on the final printed piece. Printers can get very dusty because of the large amounts of paper being handled on a daily basis. If a small fleck of dust lands a piece of paper before it runs through the press, it prevents the ink from hitting the paper leaving a white spot. This type of hickey can show up on a very small number of printed pieces because the dust is constantly moving in the air. I have checked other copies of the newspaper and found them all to be as perfect as one has come to expect from this bastion of quality local news.

Imagine the kind of responses an ad like this would generate though? I’ll leave you with that thought!

Over the holiday I have been busy printing and getting all my unfinished things finished and starting new ones!

I did my first ‘real’ run of prints from my hand series – originally cut in 2009 to test out my newly acquired and restored nipping press. The original post is here and you can see videos here.

I mixed a very deep green – not really visible in these images – and needed to make some adjustments to the block as I went along, like spraymounting small strips of paper onto the areas I wanted to keep clean after each inking!

There are three hands in the series and these will be for sale separately and as a set…

I also did a couple of tests from a new block…

And I’ve been bookbinding too. I haven’t done much binding recently, so have really enjoyed getting stuck back in. Cutting folding and poking little holes in them…

This how I have been spending a fair bit of my time – hunched under a vintage Anglepoise lamp, surrounded by tools, threads, papers, knives, ribbons and the occasional glass of  ’falling down water!’ Please notice the computer screen in the background – on this occasion, iTunes was playing out the new Tom Waits album, and the pot of vintage dip pens in front makes a nice silhouette!  

Better get some covers sorted then!

Meanwhile, back in a very cold garage printshop, more letterpress tomfoolery has been taking place, with a limited edition run of something special for the opening night of the festival – only 50 off, but you’ll have to be there to get hold of one!

If you can make it on either day, say come over and ‘Hi’ – don’t be shy and maybe buy a print or two if you like!

Lots more information on their website, and you can follow on twitter and facebook if you’re that way inclined…

The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell
(Just one book this month, but all 1000 or so pages!)

This is a devastatingly good book. Disturbing in it’s core theme, and often difficult to read comfortably - this is a book that made me question myself on many levels, even down to the point where I was unsure of whether or not I should be enjoying reading it. This book has received prizes and awards internationally, and plaudits from the most respectable reviewers, and rightly so; this is one hell of a book.

Solitary Man by Johnny Cash
Höstluft by Library Tapes
Happt Soup by Baxter Dury
Eddie, Old Bob, Dick and Gary by Tenpole Tudor
This Time Around by Green On Red
Love, Ire and Song by Frank Turner
The Broken Man by Matt Elliott
Smash It Up – The Damned Anthology 1967 -1987 by The Damned
 L’air De Rien by Tété 
4-Trackaganza! and Raw by Chris Murray
NV3 by Nouvelle Vague
Hindustani Slide Guitar by Debashish & Subhashish Bhattacharya
Lumière and Post Industrial Blues by Bob Brozman

I will be participating in an evenings printing and bookbinding on Friday 27th from 7pm with a number of other ‘printerly’ types – I will be producing some limited edition books and prints right there! Come along and see exactly what I and my fellow exhibitionists get up to…

There is a print fair on Saturday 28th 11am – 6pm where prints of all descriptions can be purchased from a wide variety of sellers, myself included! I will be selling sets of linocut and letterpress greetings cards, linocut and screenprinted art prints, as well as a few digital prints and some etchings. There will of course, be handmade sketchbooks for sale .

I have been busy printing and getting all my unfinished things finished! Many long evenings in the garage printshop!

On the Sunday there are three talks by creatives who are passionate about print; Si Scott and Generation Press have already been confirmed and you will need to purchase a tickets (only 20 squid!)  if you want to attend. Go here, buy yours now)

If you can make it on either day, come over and say ‘Hi’ – don’t be shy and maybe buy a print or two if you like!

Lots more information on their website, and you can follow on twitter and facebook if you’re that way inclined…